Trump's Contempt Is China's Gain in Latin America
He and Marco Rubio should tread strategically in Latin America, not just brandish a big stick, if they want to keep the region from getting closer to China.
Xi Jinping’s Dream Team for Latin America?
Photographer: Ryan Kelly/AFP/Getty Images
In Brazil’s northeast, China’s BYD Co. is finishing a plant to produce electric vehicles. The land where the facility is being set up belonged to Ford Motor Co., which shut its operation in 2021 as it exited Brazil after more than a century of making cars in the country. When ready, the new BYD regional hub will sit on — irony alert! — the Henry Ford Avenue of this industrial pole in the Bahia state.
It’s another twist in the increasingly complex competition between the US and China in Latin America. But the anecdote is a reminder that every business and sector that the US government and the country’s corporations relinquish in the region is an opportunity for China to expand its footprint.