‘Belt and Road’ Western Hemisphere Investments Has China Firmly Rooted in America’s Backyard

The United States has been so focused on global security concerns that it has overlooked investing in its own backyard’s economic and military needs for decades. But China hasn’t. With its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI, also known as “One Belt, One Road”), China has become South America’s largest source of infrastructure investment and second-largest trading partner, increasing trade from $18 billion in 2002 to $450 million in 2022. Twenty-five of 31 Central and South American countries have negotiated infrastructure investments from China, and 22 of those nations, most recently Honduras, have formally signed onto the BRI program. Chinese companies, either owned or subsidized by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), operate mines in Mexico, Argentina, Peru, and Venezuela, electrical grids in Peru and Chile, 5G wireless systems in Costa Rica, Bolivia, Brazil, and Mexico—80 percent of Mexico’s telecommunications equipment is provided by Chinese companies—space launch and satellite tracking facilities in Argentina, and the world’s largest embassy in the Bahamas....