August 03, 2026
China’s Quiet Quest to Dominate Latin America
This article was originally published in Foreign Affairs.
For years, U.S. officials have fretted about Chinese megaprojects in Latin America. Successive administrations have, for example, sounded the alarm about Peru’s Chancay Port, which is controlled and operated by a Chinese shipping giant, and about the Chinese-built Coca Codo Sinclair Dam, in Ecuador. In response, Washington has issued diplomatic condemnations against Latin American officials, revoked visas, and even threatened to use force against the region’s governments.
Beijing can thus make investment after investment almost undetected until, suddenly, it has built much of a state’s critical security infrastructure.
It is easy to see why the United States is so worried about major infrastructure being built and operated by China. In the eyes of many U.S. officials, these projects are a way for Beijing to accumulate leverage over Latin American governments—a concern that Washington has voiced since 2017, when the first Trump administration’s National Security Strategy warned that China sought to “pull the region into its orbit through state-led investments and loans.”
Read the full article in Foreign Affairs.