Trump’s South America threats fizzle as China’s trade surges, powered by Peru port

China’s trade with some South American nations is accelerating after the opening of Peru’s Chancay port, underscoring Beijing’s push to secure resources and bolster industrial supply chains under the Belt and Road Initiative, analysts said.

The surge in two-way trade builds on years of Chinese investment and comes as the United States seeks to roll back Beijing’s influence in the region under a strategy US President Donald Trump has called the “Donroe” doctrine – invoking a 19th-century policy that warned European powers against meddling in the newly independent nations of the Americas.

Trump repeatedly vowed to “take back” control of the strategic Panama Canal before a court in the Central American nation ruled against a subsidiary of Hong Kong’s CK Hutchison last week, sparking ire from Beijing. Washington also abducted then-Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro in early January, securing influence over the country’s oil sector.

China’s trade with Peru rose 17.8 per cent last year to US$50.96 billion, according to data from Beijing’s General Administration of Customs. That growth rate was the fastest pace in four years and a record in value terms.

Minerals drove most of the expansion. Chinese imports of ore, slag and ash from Peru jumped 20.7 per cent in value to over US$30 billion, making the South American nation its second-largest supplier after Australia. These products accounted for 87 per cent of China’s total imports from the country.

China’s trade with Chile also reached a record US$66.9 billion, up 8.5 per cent year on year, customs data showed, while merchandise flows with Ecuador surged 24 per cent to US$17.3 billion.

“The recent, dramatic rise in imports of these goods should come as no surprise,” said Charles Austin Jordan, a senior research analyst with Rhodium Group’s China Projects team.

South China Morning Post