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Obama's appearance at Summit of the Americas won't stop China’s continual growing influence in Latin America

CORRECTION APTOPIX CB Trinidad Americas Summit

This weekend US President Barack Obama was the center of attention at the 5th Summit of the Americas in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago.  Obama even eclipsed Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez’s entrance with, according to the Associated Press, “thundering applause and a few whoops” from the heads of state at the summit. Reviews of the summit consistently paint Obama as a willing “positive partner” who made a good impression on his American neighbors, to both the south and north.  Considering the antagonism of the Bush years, this was quite a successful result and did a good deal of improvement for America’s image in the Western Hemisphere.

No matter what progress the US might have made on relations wtih its neighbors at the Summit of the Americas and also as a result of more general Obama foreign policy, there is an element that cannot be forgotten: China’s growing influence in Central and South America.  This is coupled with, and perhaps inversely proportional to, the decline of US influence ranging back as far as the Spanish-American War and even beyond with the Monroe Doctrine of 1923.

This weekend, Howard LaFranchi of the Christian Science Monitor wrote a solid analysis on some of Latin America’s new trends and the lessened influence from Washington.  He explains that the combination of Bush’s War on Terror and nation building overseas naturally opened a door for Latin American business and political leaders to support partnership elsewhere, mainly with Chinese and Russian companies and officials.

And China, much more so than Russia, has taken advantage of this open door.  Whereas Russia has forged new military partnerships, especially with Venezuela and Cuba, China has worked more effectively in the economic sector.  The New York Times last week made a review of China’s recent negotiations of a series of multi-billion dollar deals with various South American countries.  These include a $12 billion development fund for Venezuela, a $10 billion loan to Brazil’s Petrobras, a $10 billion currency swap deal with Argentina, and a $1 billion loan to Ecuador for the construction of a hydroelectric plant.  Why is Beijing making such a series of high investment at this era of financial crisis?  Not only does China know that the time is ripe to increase its geostrategic influence, it also is keenly aware of its domestic energy dearth and the need to secure more foreign natural resources.  Other analysts point to China’s imports of soybeans from Brazil as evidence of China’s growing food crisis.  Droughts in China that have greatly hampered agricultural productivity translate soybean imports to “virtual water imports”.

China’s influence over Latin America does not just cover the economic sphere.  Over the past several years nations traditionally aligned with US-backed Taiwan, such as Costa Rica, have switched their allegiances, closing diplomatic missions with Taipei and reassigning their staff to Beijing.  And then China’s influence was stated most clearly by firebrand Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez on April 7 when he paid a visit to Chinese President Hu Jintao in Beijing.  After a meeting devoted in large part to expanding Venezuelan oil exports to China (currently exports are at 380,000 barrels/day and Chavez wishes to expand them to 1 million/day within 4 years), Chavez announced: “No one can be ignorant that the centre of gravity of the world has moved to Beijing.”  These are quite strong words even for Chavez, who has buttered up Iran and Russia as well.

So what is the US to do given some believe the center of the world is now Beijing?  Should it seek to regain its hegemony over Latin America, even when some global thought leaders have alleged that the American empire is in “foreclosure”?  Clearly, the days of US dominance south of its border are over.  President Obama’s perceived success this weekend in Trinidad and Tobago is in part because of his willingness to adapt to this new global reality.  He and his advisors seem to grasp that the only way of maintaining what influence the US has in Latin America and the Caribbean is by encouraging stable and healthy interactions and acting as a “positive partner”.  His subdued overtures to Venezuela and Cuba are the most public facets of these views.

Photo credit: AP Photo/Mariamma Kambon

 

Author

Christopher Herbert

Christopher Herbert is an analyst of foreign affairs with specific expertise in US foreign policy, the Middle East and Asia. He is Director of Research for the Denver Research Group, has written for the Washington Post’s PostGlobal and Global Power Barometer and has served on projects for the United States Pacific Command and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. He has degrees from Yale University and Harvard University in Middle Eastern history and politics and speaks English, French, Arabic and Italian.

Area of Focus
US Foreign Policy; Middle East; Asia.

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