For China, President Trump’s power grab in Venezuela is a frontal attack on a longstanding source of oil, cultivated through billions of dollars in loans and years of political courtship. But Mr. Trump has also expressed a wider vision for power that involves breaking China’s economic dominance across Latin America.
His new focus — and willingness to put military force behind it — threatens to loosen China’s economic grip in a region where it has quietly used abundant trade, massive loans and financial tie-ups to build influence.
China has gone from doing nearly no business in the region two decades ago to bilateral trade worth more than $500 billion in 2024.
Chinese mining companies extract copper from Peru and lithium from Argentina. China’s agricultural conglomerates import lifeline commodities like soybeans from Brazil. Chinese utilities power entire cities. China controls much of the shipping infrastructure and the ports that transit goods across the Pacific.
Latin America’s 670 million consumers are also buying Chinese brands. In Mexico, dealerships sell gasoline-powered Chery cars and MG sedans. In Brazil, the fast-food chain Mixue sells ice cream, the e-commerce platform Meituan delivers food and the ride-hailing service Didi ferries people around. In Peru, Xiaomi smartphones are popular.
China has closely followed Mr. Trump’s comments singling out countries like Colombia, Cuba and Mexico, and it has expressed its opposition to the U.S. actions in Venezuela, saying that China’s economic relationship with the country is “protected by international law and relevant laws.”
