American Influence Is Needed in Latin America Now Like Never Before—to Combat China

Newsweek | Rep. Mike Gallagher

In 2023, a visitor to the Panama Canal might think they were in China. Ports at both ends of the Canal are managed by companies from the People's Republic of China (PRC), while Huawei dominates the country's telecoms system.

Panama joined Beijing's Belt and Road Initiative in 2018, just one year after severing diplomatic relations with Taiwan, becoming the first nation in the Western Hemisphere to embrace Beijing's massive infrastructure development strategy. Margarita Island, off the Atlantic mouth of the canal, is leased to the Landbridge Group for the development of a free trade port outside of local control. Landbridge has close ties to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), and its chairman has served on the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, a key United Front organization.

Panama illustrates the relentless advance of CCP influence across the Western Hemisphere. Between 2000 and 2010, the PRC's share of Latin American exports quintupled, then tripled again between 2010 and 2021, from $180 billion to $450 billion. PRC-linked companies have secured control of more than 40 ports across the region. Twenty additional Latin American nations have followed Panama into the PRC's Belt and Road Initiative.

Read the full op-ed HERE.