Beijing Turns Its Eye Toward Latin America

The uncertain tariff situation with the United States seems to have impelled Beijing to reach out to other regions of the world, most pointedly Latin America.

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva speaks during the opening ceremony of the Fourth Ministerial Meeting of the Forum of China and Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) in Beijing on May 13, 2025. Pedro Pardo/AFP via Getty Images

Commentary

Despite the pause in President Donald Trump’s tariff pressure on China, Beijing knows how vulnerable its economy is to a trade war with the United States. In an effort to find alternatives to the American relationship, China has launched a charm offensive the world over, most pointedly in Washington’s backyard, in Latin America.

With Latin American trade in mind, Beijing has convened meetings of the China-Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) Forum. Beijing launched the group in 2015. At these most recent meetings, Chinese leader Xi Jinping reminded delegates from the 30 countries gathered in Beijing earlier in May how much China–CELAC trade has grown in the years since the forum was inaugurated, to the equivalent of $515 billion in 2024, still smaller than China–U.S. trade, but a certainly not insignificant amount.

Xi also touted China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI, also known as One Belt, One Road) and pledged a 66 billion yuan (about $9.2 billion) credit line for fresh infrastructure investment. It is an attractive amount to less-than-fully developed societies in Latin America and the Caribbean. But as a sign of China’s other severe economic problems, Xi’s recent offer was less than half China pledged in 2015.

Credit lines and the glitter of the BRI were not all Xi offered at the forum. He promised both Brazil and Colombia that China would buy more of their exports and that, in addition to his pledge, he would encourage both private and state-owned Chinese firms to invest more in the two countries. Especially Brazil welcomed these promises, since that country and its president, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, have positioned themselves to deliver agricultural products to China should a trade war with the United States force China to cut back on heretofore significant American agricultural imports.

As part of Beijing’s courtship of Latin American trade ties, Xi also announced that Beijing will allow for one year visa-free entry into China for the nationals of five Latin American countries: Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Peru, and Uruguay—not coincidentally, all major agricultural exporters.

No doubt Xi was especially pleased to announce that Colombia had signed a joint cooperation plan with the BRI. Colombia’s foreign minister, Laura Sarabia, described the decision in glowing terms, saying that it was the country’s “boldest step in decades.” China is second only to the United States in trade with Colombia, and China has already surpassed the United States as a source of imports into the country.

Although more than 20 Latin American countries are among the 150 nations participating in China’s BRI, the new presence of Colombia is especially important to Beijing, because Panama recently announced its decision to leave the program when its membership expires in about two years. Beijing blames this decision on pressure from Washington, but it is otherwise entirely consistent with the behavior of other nations that have discovered how a BRI affiliation comes with terms and conditions that can be burdensome.

The meetings could have been a diplomatic win for Beijing. Though trade issues remain ambiguous and Latin America, even with the Caribbean, cannot make up for lost trade with the United States, China nonetheless appears to have made some progress moving away from its dependence on the United States, should it become necessary. So far, the Trump administration has said nothing about China’s actions or those of the nations involved with the China–CELAC Forum.

In a purely economic light, things look less like a triumph. The arrangements proposed by Xi will impose costs on a weakened Chinese economy that can ill afford them, and even in the best possible light from Beijing’s point of view, the conclusions of the forum hardly bind Latin America to China. Indeed, Brazilian President da Silva went out of his way, even while still in Beijing, to advise his fellow delegates to avoid depending on any other country, including China

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.