On Saturday, President Trump met with leaders from across Latin America and the Caribbean for the so-called Shield of the Americas Summit in Florida. The meeting, which largely centered on the fight against organized crime, was another high-profile attempt by the Trump administration to claim geopolitical primacy in the Western Hemisphere — a goal that made the top of last year’s National Security Strategy and has been referred to as the Donroe Doctrine.
But the event did little more than reveal the limits of Mr. Trump’s regional strategy. The meeting had a deep bench of Mr. Trump’s Latin American allies, like Argentina’s Javier Milei and El Salvador’s Nayib Bukele. But the leaders of Brazil, Mexico and Colombia — which together account for more than half of the region’s G.D.P. — were conspicuously absent.
Mr. Trump’s approach has leaned heavily on economic coercion, flattery of ideological kin and the specter of military intervention to force regional alignment. The U.S. president apparently seeks a clean network of allies purged of perceived foreign influence or anti-Trumpian defiance. This strategy has in many ways fallen short. It is difficult to project an image of an engaged hegemon when the administration’s focus is being pulled into a Middle Eastern quagmire and even more difficult when the president’s approach relies on threats and rebukes rather than a positive agenda for the region.
For years, Washington’s Latin America policy has oscillated between neglect and alarmism — about security threats, migration flows, anti-American regimes and Chinese influence. The result is a region that has learned to nod to U.S. concerns while quietly cashing Chinese checks.
Beijing’s strategy has been one of patient, deep-pocketed presence: Since 2005, Chinese banks have provided upwards of $120 billion in loan commitments to Latin American and Caribbean nations, often targeting the energy, mining and heavy transport sectors where Western capital has grown risk-averse. This means that even supposedly pro-American leaders practice a kind of strategic hedging. They welcome constructive ties to the United States, which remains the region’s most important source of foreign direct investment — but they are unwilling to let Mr. Trump dictate the terms of their engagement with China.
That is in no small part because Mr. Trump’s approach is light on positive incentives. American officials frequently warn of the risks posed by engagement with Beijing, citing so-called debt-trap diplomacy and potential dual-use military applications for Chinese-built infrastructure. But Washington has struggled to present a compelling economic alternative or explain how Latin American countries would benefit from distancing themselves from China.
Some nations have had little choice. In Mexico and across much of Central America and the Caribbean — proximate countries that have much to lose from U.S. hostility — leaders have had to fall more in line with Mr. Trump. Mexico’s recent decision to slap tariffs of up to 50 percent on Chinese imports in the face of U.S. pressure shows that, for some, the cost of defiance is simply too high.
But most South American countries are far less structurally dependent on the United States and have grown increasingly integrated with China and other partners. This explains why Brazil and Colombia, for instance, have been reluctant to relinquish ties with Moscow even since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Strong relations with multiple centers of power, including the United States, provide insurance and diplomatic flexibility as a hedge against volatility from any major player.
This kind of hedging is also a matter of economic pragmatism. Trade between China and Latin America soared to $518.47 billion in 2024 from $12 billion in 2000; Brazil, the region’s largest economy, exports more to China than to the United States and Europe combined. For decades, Chinese companies have built ports, power plants and telecommunications infrastructure across the hemisphere, financing projects that Western lenders have been reluctant to support.
Far from choosing sides, Latin American leaders are increasingly adept at performing the public rituals of alignment required by Washington while quietly doubling down on their commercial ties with Beijing. Take Brazil’s former president Jair Bolsonaro: While campaigning in 2018, he proclaimed his admiration for Mr. Trump, made a high-profile visit to Taiwan and vowed to end what he described as the “friendly with Communist regimes” diplomacy of previous Brazilian governments. Once in office, Mr. Bolsonaro hewed closely with Mr. Trump’s positions and deepened security cooperation with Washington.
None of this prevented him from simultaneously presiding over a significant expansion of trade ties with China, exceeding $170 billion in bilateral trade by the end of his term. Nor did it stop him from refusing one of Washington’s central requests: banning the Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei from Brazil’s 5G network.
That pattern is playing out elsewhere in the region. Under Mr. Milei, Argentina has rejected an invitation to join the BRICS group of emerging economies, suspended a Chinese telescope project and barred Chinese companies from bidding on dredging work along a critical waterway. Under his leadership, though, exports to China surged by 125 percent year on year, with the country briefly overtaking Brazil as Argentina’s biggest trading partner.
Given Latin America’s deep anti-incumbent bias and frequent political turnover, any strategy by the Trump administration to secure regional dominance that depends heavily on ideological conformity will probably have a short shelf life. China, by contrast, has demonstrated a willingness to work with leaders, from Mr. Milei to Brazil’s Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, across the ideological spectrum.
Nor will the Trump administration be in a better position to enforce regional loyalty the more deeply enmeshed it becomes in a prolonged conflict with Iran. That possibility is not lost on policymakers in Latin America, for whom the unfolding crisis may serve as further motivation to do precisely what Washington hopes to discourage: hedge, avoid rigid alliances and stay away from geopolitical brawls elsewhere.
The United States remains the region’s largest overall trading partner, but a partner cannot lead by threats alone. U.S.-Latin American ties are already deep and mutually beneficial, spanning trade, investment, education, migration and cultural exchange. Rather than treat the region like a zero-sum security theater, Washington should focus on expanding these positive connections and competing confidently where it matters most.
When U.S. policy toward Latin America revolves around a checklist of demands, it can come across as patronizing and even a bit desperate, as though the United States doubts its ability to compete. A strategy centered on partnership would resonate more with Latin American governments and remind the region that a good relationship with the United States is still valuable in its own right, at least for now.
Oliver Stuenkel is a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and an associate professor at the School of International Relations at the Getulio Vargas Foundation in São Paulo, Brazil.
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