Donald Trump\u2019s brazen move to snatch Nicol\u00e1s Maduro from his Caracas home last week also sent a clear message to Chinese President Xi Jinping: The Western Hemisphere has no room for another superpower.<\/p>\n
The US military\u2019s raid on Venezuela \u2014 home to the world\u2019s largest oil reserves and the only country in Latin America that boasts an \u201call-weather strategic partnership\u201d with Beijing \u2014 marked an audacious debut of what Trump has called the \u201cDonroe Doctrine,\u201d a revival of the 19th-century policy by then President James Monroe establishing US dominance in the Americas.<\/p>\n
Codified in the White House\u2019s National Security Strategy released last month, the plan asserts a unilateral US right to deny rival powers the ability to own or control \u201cstrategically vital assets.\u201d One particularly bold\u00a0line declares that the US \u201cshould make every effort to push out foreign companies that build infrastructure in the region.\u201d<\/p>\n
US officials have made similarly broad statements in the wake of Maduro\u2019s ouster. Secretary of State Marco Rubio declared the White House won\u2019t \u201callow the Western Hemisphere to be a base of operation for adversaries, competitors, and rivals.\u201d\u00a0Mike Waltz, the US envoy to the United Nations, was more blunt in calling out Beijing: \u201cThe Chinese are moving incredibly aggressively into the Western Hemisphere, into South America,\u201d he told Fox News. \u201cPresident Trump and Secretary Rubio are pushing back on that hard.\u201d<\/p>\n
Beyond the tough talk, however, it\u2019s unclear how exactly the Trump administration will pull that off. ABC reported on Tuesday that the White House demanded that Venezuela reduce its relationships with China, Russia, Iran and Cuba, including by severing economic ties. Yet replicating such demands across\u00a0a large and politically diverse region would prove far more difficult and cause a significant uproar.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe United States is reacting 20 years too late,\u201d said Enrique Dussel Peters, head of the Mexico-China Studies Center of the National Autonomous University of Mexico, noting that China\u2019s deeply integrated supply chains throughout the region would be difficult to unwind even in places that have close trade links with the US. \u201cFor practically the entire 21st century, China has had the upper hand in economic matters in Latin America.\u201d<\/p>\n
China\u2019s goods trade with Latin America has surged since the turn of the century, rising by more than 40 times in that span to $518 billion in 2024 \u2014 challenging the US\u2019s long-established economic dominance in the region. Increasingly, the region\u2019s residents are driving BYD cars, using Xiaomi smartphones and ordering taxis and food from Didi instead of Uber.<\/p>\n
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<\/p>\nA BYD factory under construction in Camacari, Brazil in January 2025. Photographer: Tuane Fernandes\/Bloomberg<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
China has also invested significantly into Latin America, with direct foreign investment projects topping $180 billion by the third quarter of 2025, according to data from US-based research group Rhodium Group. China\u2019s economic influence has surpassed that of the US in 14 of the region\u2019s 33 countries since the turn of the century, research from Bloomberg Economics shows. In that time it has also seen several governments switch diplomatic recognition away from Taiwan to Beijing, including Honduras and Nicaragua.<\/p>\n
For now, governments throughout the region appear dismissive of the White House threats, not least because they don\u2019t see an inward-looking US providing an alternative to Chinese investments in the region. In Brazil, Latin America\u2019s largest economy, officials who deal with Chinese investments saw Trump\u2019s actions as isolated to Venezuela. Asking not to be identified to discuss government policy, the officials said President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva won\u2019t take sides between the US and China, and Brazil more broadly saw its diversified trade relationships as providing leverage in talks with the Trump administration.<\/p>\n
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Those sentiments were shared throughout the region\u2019s major economies by officials who requested anonymity to speak frankly. In Mexico, a leading senator involved in trade negotiations with the US said the Venezuela move changes nothing about its approach to China. That sentiment was echoed by a diplomat in Argentina, where President Javier Milei\u2019s government has pursued good relations with Beijing while limiting engagement in any sensitive military or political areas. Peruvian officials have stressed that growing economic links with China don\u2019t come at the expense of longstanding defense cooperation with the US.<\/p>\n
In Colombia, where Trump has warned Gustavo Petro \u2014 the nation\u2019s first left-wing president \u2014 to \u201cwatch his ass,\u201d the US has already threatened multilateral financing for projects involving Chinese companies after his government formally joined Xi\u2019s Belt and Road Initiative. Mauricio Jaramillo, Colombia\u2019s deputy foreign minister, called Trump\u2019s threats unacceptable and added that the country needs to defend its sovereignty and right to pursue an independent foreign policy.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe need to stop demonizing ties with China and separate that relationship from the relationship with the US,\u201d Jaramillo said in an interview. \u201cBecause both countries are friends.\u201d<\/p>\n
For now, it\u2019s an open question how far Trump will go to uproot Chinese influence from Latin America. Any concrete moves to implement the National Security Strategy \u2014 something Trump\u2019s team has repeatedly said is guiding its decisions \u2014 threaten to sow fresh chaos across the region and open up new potential flashpoints with China.<\/p>\n
While so far there\u2019s no sign the broader US-China trade truce is under threat, with Trump and Xi set to meet four times this year, Beijing appeared stunned by Maduro\u2019s ouster and has vowed to protect its interests in the region. On Wednesday, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning blasted reports that the US would pressure Venezuela to cut economic ties with China, calling it a \u201ctypical bullying act.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cLet me stress that China and other countries have legitimate rights in Venezuela, which must be protected,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
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Concern over China\u2019s access to resources was part of Trump\u2019s calculation while authorizing the Maduro raid, according to a White House official who asked not to be identified, adding that the president was focused on ensuring dominance in the Western Hemisphere. Still, the official cautioned that other factors \u2014 including illegal drugs and migration \u2014 were the main driving forces behind the president\u2019s decision.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs President Trump outlined in his National Security Strategy, the administration is reasserting and enforcing the Monroe Doctrine to restore American preeminence in the Western Hemisphere, control migration, and stop drug trafficking,\u201d White House spokesperson Anna Kelly said in response to questions. \u201cThe president has many options at his disposal to continue to protect our homeland from illicit narcotics that kill tens of thousands of Americans every year.\u201d<\/p>\n
From the Panama Canal and a deep-water port in Peru to the lithium salt flats of the Andes and Venezuela\u2019s oil fields, Chinese companies have also become embedded into strategic industries all along America\u2019s doorstep. Many are extracting or shipping key commodities, such as oil, soybeans and critical minerals like copper and lithium, while also making investments in key infrastructure including Brazil\u2019s electricity transmission system.<\/p>\n
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<\/p>\nChancay port in Peru. Photographer: Alessandro Cinque\/Bloomberg<\/p>\n
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Just how Trump could muscle China out of key infrastructure in the region remains unclear, though Argentina may offer a blueprint. The leading exporter of soy meal and oil in December blocked a Chinese bid for a 30-year contract to deepen its main waterway to ship crops to the rest of the world. It also blocked projects to build a Chinese space telescope in San Juan and a nuclear power plant in Buenos Aires. Trump has rewarded Milei with a $20 billion currency swap that helped lock in an October midterm election.<\/p>\n
Either way, officials within China are now discussing ways to protect overseas investments.<\/p>\n
Wu Xinbo, director at Fudan University\u2019s Center for American Studies in Shanghai who has advised China\u2019s government, said Beijing needs to provide sufficient deterrence to both terrorists and nations like the US that may want to target Chinese interests. Any moves by the Trump administration to target Chinese investments in the region threatens to affect the broader relationship and would prompt Beijing to retaliate, he added.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf the US put some of our business as hostage, the target, we can do the same,\u201d Wu added. \u201cThe US has economic interests globally, including in China.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Xi last year leveraged China\u2019s control of rare earths to force Trump to back down from tariffs of more than 100% on Chinese goods, leading to a truce between the two leaders cemented during a meeting between them in late October. Separately, Beijing managed to successfully push back on a deal that would see a Hong Kong conglomerate lose control of key ports in the Panama Canal and elsewhere, with state-run China Cosco Shipping Corp. set to join the buying consortium.<\/p>\n
Yet Trump\u2019s new push to dominate South America may lead to more forceful measures. Hours before the US raid, a high-level Chinese delegation met in Caracas with Maduro, who shared images of the group shaking hands on his Instagram page \u2014 showing the extent to which Beijing was caught off guard.<\/p>\n
One place on the White House\u2019s radar is the deepwater port of Chancay in Peru. Inaugurated by Xi in late 2024, the $1.3 billion megaport represented the bridgehead of a new maritime Silk Road that would drastically reduce shipping times to China. It features 17.8-meter (58-foot) deepwater berths capable of handling the world\u2019s largest container ships and naval vessels \u2014 sparking concern it could one day serve as a Chinese military outpost, an allegation Beijing denies.<\/p>\n
After Trump\u2019s election win in 2024, Mauricio Claver-Carone, an adviser to his transition team, proposed a 60% tariff on any goods passing through Chinese-owned or controlled ports in the region, regardless of their country of origin. At the time, he said the goal was to make Latin American nations think twice before allowing Beijing to build a port in their territory.<\/p>\n
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In an annual report on China\u2019s military released last month, the Pentagon also warned that Beijing was making substantial inroads through infrastructure and energy in Latin America, noting\u00a0the region hosted Beijing\u2019s \u201clargest space infrastructure footprint outside of mainland China.\u201d One such place is\u00a0a space observation center in Argentina\u2019s Patagonia region that occupies an area roughly half the size of New York\u2019s Central Park, which\u00a0US\u00a0officials have long speculated is used for tracking American military satellites.<\/p>\n
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Venezuela will provide the first test of how China\u2019s interests are handled. In the wake of Maduro\u2019s ouster, China\u2019s top financial regulator asked its policy banks and other major lenders to report their lending exposure to Venezuela, people familiar with the matter said earlier this week.<\/p>\n
China became a key lender to Venezuela in 2007, when it first provided funds for infrastructure and oil projects under late President\u00a0Hugo Chavez.\u00a0Estimates\u00a0suggest that Beijing lent upwards of $60 billion in oil-backed loans through state-run banks until 2015.<\/p>\n
China has sought to reduce its exposure over the past decade, with imports\u00a0from Venezuela last year on pace to shrivel to just 8% of purchases it made 13 years ago.\u00a0Caracas is still on the hook to repay about $20 billion to China, including arrears accumulated in recent years, according to Stephen Kaplan, associate professor at George Washington University\u2019s Elliot School of International Affairs and\u00a0author of the book\u00a0Globalizing Patient Capital: The Political Economy of Chinese Finance in the Americas<\/em>.<\/p>\n China National Petroleum Corporation, one of\u00a0China\u2019s largest state-owned oil and gas majors, currently has the biggest presence in Venezuela.\u00a0Leading\u00a0Chinese\u00a0oil companies with interests in the country this week asked officials in Beijing for guidance on how to protect their investments,\u00a0in an effort to align their responses with China\u2019s diplomatic strategy and salvage existing claims to some of the world\u2019s largest oil reserves, Bloomberg reported.<\/p>\n China has invested billions in hydrodams, wind and solar farms and gas and coal generators in Latin America.\u00a0In Ecuador, for instance, Beijing has\u00a0helped finance about 2.3 gigawatts of hydropower, more than a quarter of the country\u2019s entire generation capacity, according to data from Boston University and BloombergNEF.<\/p>\n A sign shows Hugo Chavez shaking hands with Hu Jintao at the entrance to China Railway Engineering Corp.\u2019s Tinaco-Anaco railway project site in Los Dos, Venezuela in 2012. Photographer: Meridith Kohut\/Bloomberg<\/p>\n<\/div>\n The place where China\u2019s electricity investments are most prevalent is Brazil, where Beijing has helped finance more than 21 gigawatts of capacity mostly in hydropower projects \u2014\u00a0roughly 7% of the country\u2019s\u00a0generation capacity. China\u2019s State Grid Corp. has won billions of dollars worth of transmission line projects, and built a 2,500-kilometer (1,550-mile)\u00a0ultra-high voltage power line \u2014\u00a0the longest in the world outside China\u00a0\u2014 through the Brazilian rainforest connecting the Belo Monte dam to Rio de Janeiro.<\/p>\n Most notably, Envision Energy, a major wind turbine manufacturer, will develop Latin America\u2019s first Net-Zero Industrial Park in Brazil, focusing on sustainable aviation fuel, green hydrogen and ammonia. EV giant BYD Co also opened the $1-billion Cama\u00e7ari plant, its largest facility outside Asia in Brazil.<\/p>\n State-owned agribusiness Cofco International Ltd.\u00a0expanded its agricultural presence in Brazil \u2014\u00a0the world\u2019s top soybean exporter\u00a0\u2014\u00a0\u00a0by constructing one of its largest overseas export terminals at the Port of Santos. The facility, estimated to\u00a0ship 8 million tons of commodities a year including soybeans, corn and sugar, underscores Beijing\u2019s strategy of investing in critical links in the agricultural supply chain rather than merely buying commodities on the open market.<\/p>\n \u201cUntil now, the \u2018Donroe Doctrine\u2019 was mostly rhetorical,\u201d said Jeremy Chan, a former US diplomat who is now a senior analyst at Eurasia Group. \u201cAfter this weekend\u2019s events, Beijing has to be reconsidering its ability to hold onto its investments across the region.\u201d<\/p>\n \u00a9 2026 Bloomberg<\/p>\n Follow Moneyweb\u2019s in-depth finance and business news on WhatsApp here.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.moneyweb.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/447210851-555x368.jpg\")
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