Over the past two decades, China has quietly eclipsed the United States as the dominant trading partner in parts of Latin America.
But since taking office for a second term, US President Donald Trump has pushed to reverse Beijing’s advance.
Recommended stories
list of 3 itemsend of list
That includes aggressive moves aimed at China’s allies in the region.
The Trump administration has already stripped officials from Costa Rica, Panama and Chile of their U.S. visas, allegedly because of their ties to China.
He has also threatened to take back the Panama Canal over accusations that Chinese agents are managing the waterway. And after invading Venezuela and kidnapping President Nicolás Maduro, the United States forced the country to suspend oil exports to China.
But on Saturday, Trump will take a different approach and welcome Latin American leaders to his Mar-a-Lago estate for an event dubbed the “Shield of the Americas” summit.
It remains unclear how he plans to persuade leaders to distance themselves from one of the region’s largest economic partners.
But experts say the high-level meeting could signal that Washington is prepared to put concrete offers on the table.
Getting meaningful commitments from Latin American leaders will take more than a photo op and vague promises, according to Francisco Urdínez, an expert on regional relations with China at the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile.
Even among Trump’s allies, Urdínez believes that significant economic incentives are required.
“What they really hope is for Washington to back political alignment with tangible economic benefits,” he said.
‘Strengthening the Donroe Doctrine’
The White House has already confirmed that nearly a dozen countries will be represented at the weekend summit.
They include conservative leaders from Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Dominican Republic, Honduras, Panama, Paraguay and Trinidad and Tobago.
Mexico and Brazil, the region’s largest economies, have been notably left out. Both are currently led by left-wing governments.
In a social media post, the Trump administration framed the event as a “historic meeting that reinforces the Donroe Doctrine,” the president’s plan to establish American dominance over the Western Hemisphere.
Part of that strategy involves forming a coalition of ideological allies in the region.
But pushing back Chinese influence in a region increasingly dependent on its economy will not be an easy task, according to Gimena Sánchez, Andes director of the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA), a US-based research and advocacy group.
The United States “is trying to get countries to agree that they are not going to have China as one of their main trading partners, and they really can’t right now,” Sánchez said.
“For most countries, China is their main, second or third trading partner.”
After all, China has the world’s second-largest economy and has invested heavily in Latin America, including through infrastructure projects and massive loans.
The Asian giant has become the main trading partner of South America in particular, with bilateral trade set to reach $518 billion in 2024, a record for Beijing.
However, the United States remains the largest foreign trading force in Latin America and the Caribbean overall, due in large part to close relations with its neighbor, Mexico.
In 2024, US imports from Latin America increased to $661 billion and its exports were valued at $517 billion.
However, instead of choosing sides, many countries in the region are trying to strike a balance between the two powers, Sánchez explained.
Still, he added that the United States cannot come to this weekend’s negotiations empty-handed.
“If the United States is very boldly telling countries to cut strengthening ties with China,” Sánchez emphasized that “the United States is going to have to offer them something.”
What’s on the table?
Trump has already extended economic lifelines to Latin American governments politically aligned with his.
In the case of Argentina, for example, Trump announced a $20 billion currency swap in October, aimed at increasing the value of the country’s peso.
It also increased the volume of Argentine meat allowed to be imported into the United States, shoring up the country’s agricultural sector, despite opposition from American ranchers.
Trump has largely tied those economic incentives to his continued leadership of political movements favorable to his own.
The $20 billion swap, for example, came before a key election for the right-wing party of Argentine President Javier Milei, which Trump supports.
Isolating China from resources in Latin America could also be an advantage for Trump as he seeks better trade terms with Beijing.
A show of hemispheric solidarity could give Trump an added advantage when he travels to Beijing in early April to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping, Urdínez said.
Then there is the regional security angle. The United States has expressed particular concern about China’s control over strategic infrastructure in Latin America and the critical minerals it could exploit in the region to bolster its technological and defense capabilities.
Bolivia, Argentina and Chile, for example, are believed to have the world’s largest deposits of lithium, a metal needed for energy storage and rechargeable batteries.
The Trump administration referenced such threats in its national security strategy, released in December.
“Some foreign influence will be difficult to reverse,” the strategy document said, blaming “political alignments between certain Latin American governments and certain foreign actors.”
However, Trump’s security platform claimed that Latin American leaders were actively seeking alternatives to China.
“Many governments are not ideologically aligned with foreign powers, but are attracted to doing business with them for other reasons, including low costs and fewer regulatory obstacles,” the document says.
He argued that the United States could combat Chinese influence by highlighting the “hidden costs” of close ties with Beijing, including “debt traps” and espionage.
‘More aspiration than reality’
Henrietta Levin, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, believes many Latin American countries would prefer to deepen economic engagement with the United States rather than China.
But in many cases, that has not been an option.
He pointed to Ecuador’s decision to sign a free trade agreement (FTA) with China in 2023 after it failed to negotiate a similar agreement with the United States during Joe Biden’s presidency.
Some American politicians had opposed the agreement, considering it a threat to domestic industries. Others had encouraged Biden to reject it due to alleged corruption in Ecuador’s government.
Critics, however, said the resistance pushed Ecuador toward closer relations with China.
“When Ecuador signed its free trade agreement with China a couple of years ago, its leader made it quite clear that they wanted an FTA with the United States and that they would have preferred it,” Levin said.
“But the United States did not want to negotiate such an agreement and China did.”
As a result, Ecuador became the fifth country in Latin America to sign a free trade pact with China, after Chile, Peru, Costa Rica and Nicaragua.
For Levin, the question looming over this weekend’s summit is whether the Trump administration will step forward and offer alternatives to the economic commitment China has already made.
Options could include commercial agreements, financing for new developments and investments with attractive conditions.
But without such offers, Urdinez, the Chilean professor, warns that Trump will face limits to his ambitions to control China’s growth in Latin America.
“Until Washington is willing to fill the economic space it is asking countries to leave free, the rollback strategy will continue to be more of an aspiration than a reality,” Urdínez said.
