Only US leadership can stop China’s economic power in Latin America

Latin America has been seduced in recent years by China’s massive economic investment projects. The Communist state has a dangerous hold on telecommunications, the lithium and copper industries, ports and other critical infrastructure in the region. The next U.S. administration will play a key role in stopping and even reversing the dangers of this new threat.

In March of this year, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) expressed great concern over Chinese investments. “Communist China has become the world’s largest exporter of automobiles through massive states subsidies, forced labor, intellectual property theft, and other subversive policies,” Rubio said. Another strong critic of China is Rep. Mike Waltz (R-Fla.), who noted that China goes “into impoverished countries, give loans that they know the country can’t repay, and take as collateral ports, electrical grids, [and] mountain ranges." Rubio and Waltz will be among the main foreign policy and national security figures in the Trump administration.

China does not offer the kind of well-being and prosperity that is part of the U.S. business model. Last week, Brazil halted the construction of a Chinese car factory due to slavery-like conditions. Authorities reported that 163 Chinese citizens were brought to Brazil illegally and forced to work under degrading conditions.

According to international organizations like End Slavery Now, repression and human rights abuses are a huge problem in China, where ethnic and religious minorities (Christians, Muslims and others) perform forced labor in the name of “reeducation.” That’s how the Communist nation competes with lower prices against U.S. products.

Human Rights Watch has noted that Chinese carmakers are implicated in forced labor. Government abuses include more than 1 million arbitrary detentions, cultural and religious persecution and transfer and relocation programs.

According to the Global Slavery Index, 5.7 million people experienced forced labor or forced marriage in China in 2021. China, North Korea and Eritrea are among the main countries practicing and promoting modern slavery inside and outside their own nations.

Despite this abusive business model, China is investing billions of dollars in Latin America. A U.N. report states that from 2000 to 2022, the trade in goods between Latin America and China expanded by 35 times, while the region’s total global trade increased only fourfold. Bilateral trade, which scarcely exceeded $14 billion in 2000, totaled nearly $500 billion in 2022. China is on the offensive, and that is why the next American president is determine the stop it.

Telecommunications and information technology are also on China’s radar. Huawei, banned in the U.S. in 2022, is the fastest-growing telecommunications company in Latin America, reaching $4.89 billion in 2023. For more than two decades, U.S. government officials have raised national and economic-security concerns about Huawei, citing its ties to the Chinese government and military.

The Asian giant controls not only the lithium and copper industries in Latin America, but has also become the main supplier of their telecom technology — all critical sectors in terms of trade, defense and security.

The only way to stop China’s accelerated advance in Latin America continues to be democracy and the counterweight of greater leadership from Europe and the U.S.

Trade with the U.S. is not a right, it is a privilege. That is why all nations that have a strong relationship with China need to review their priorities. Supporting China is supporting modern slavery and human rights violations but, most importantly, being with China is taking sides with a nation that challenges the economic security of the U.S.

A comprehensive and exhaustive review of China’s relationship with Latin America is urgently needed for the continent to have greater security, prosperity and democracy.

Arturo McFields Yescas is a former Nicaraguan ambassador to the Organization of American States, an exiled journalist and a former member of the Norwegian Peace Corps.