Xi says Latin America can pick partners ‘without outside interference’ in challenge to Trump policy
by Bill Gertz · The Washington TimesChinese President Xi Jinping this week challenged President Trump’s push to re-establish the Monroe Doctrine in the Western Hemisphere — a strategy that calls for preventing China and other foreign powers from dominating the region.
The Chinese leader said during a meeting with Ecuador’s President Daniel Noboa that he supports autonomy for Latin American nations that he said should be free to pursue global cooperation based on their interests.
“Latin American and Caribbean nations should have freedom to choose their international partners without outside interference,” Mr. Xi said according to state media.
The comment is widely viewed as an indirect attack on the Trump administration’s National Security Strategy issued in November calling for a new U.S. “corollary” to the Monroe Doctrine.
China lost access to a key source of oil after U.S. special operations forces captured Venezuela’s Nicolas Maduro and the government in Caracas began leaning toward the United States.
Cuba, a communist ally of China, also is under pressure from the American administration.
Mr. Xi also said the status of Latin America and the Caribbean as a zone of peace “should not be shaken” and its “path of development” should not be interrupted — veiled language Chinese propaganda has used in the past to advocate for expanding the Chinese communist economic and political system.
The new White House security strategy calls for a “Trump corollary to the Monroe Doctrine,” the 1823 policy of President James Monroe. The doctrine stated that the Western Hemisphere was off-limits to future European colonization and warned that any foreign military intervention would be regarded as a hostile act against the United States.
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The Trump update to the strategy calls for the United States to be the preeminent power in the hemisphere.
“After years of neglect, the United States will reassert and enforce the Monroe Doctrine to restore American preeminence in the Western Hemisphere, and to protect our homeland and our access to key geographies throughout the region,” the strategy said.
The United States under the new policy will deny “competitors” from outside the region the ability to position forces or other threatening capabilities or to own or control strategically vital assets, a reference to China’s two port facilities at either end of the Panama Canal that are now being removed from Beijing’s control.
The new regional policy is dubbed “enlist and expand” — join with established friends to control migration, halt drug flows and bolster security and stability.
The expand part calls for cultivating and strengthening new partners while increasing the appeal of working with America as a “partner of choice.”
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Plans also call for a greater U.S. military presence in the region to protect sea lanes and curb illegal migration and human and drug trafficking.
Tariffs and trade agreements are planned to strengthen the economy and industry.
Greater linkages with regional nations, including military sales and intelligence sharing, will make it more difficult for nations outside the region to increase their influence, the strategy states.
“Non-Hemispheric competitors have made major inroads into our Hemisphere, both to disadvantage us economically in the present, and in ways that may harm us strategically in the future,” the strategy said, indirectly referring to China.
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“Allowing these incursions without serious pushback is another great American strategic mistake of recent decades.”
Ecuador appears to be a test case for the strategy as the Quito government is seeking to increase its alignment with Washington but also wants some benefit from its ties to Beijing.
Mr. Noba, a 37-year-old conservative, has worked to establish good relations with Mr. Trump, praised his foreign policies and attended his inauguration.
The FBI opened its first office in Ecuador in March, and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth earlier this month praised the country’s government for joining with the U.S. military in a “combined kinetic operation against narco-terrorists in Ecuador.
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Efforts to bolster U.S. military ties were set back in November when Ecuadorian voters rejected a presidential proposal to permit re-establishing a military base in the region.
The Pentagon’s National Defense Strategy also shifted the focus of its policies toward the Western Hemisphere. The defense strategy said American interests are threatened throughout the region.
The defense strategy also declared that “we will actively and fearlessly defend America’s interests throughout the Western Hemisphere.”
Ecuador’s leader is on a state visit to China until Sunday and Mr. Noba, a conservative who has voiced support for Mr. Trump, said his nation is willing to be “a good friend of China.”
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During the visit this week he also said he supported China’s position on Taiwan, the self-ruled island that Beijing has vowed to annex, with force if necessary.
Mr. Xi said at one point during the Noba visit that the two countries should “consolidate political mutual trust” and expand cooperation on energy, minerals, infrastructure and finance.
Mr. Xi’s reference to the zone of peace related to a declaration signed by 33 Latin American and Caribbean nations in 2014 calling for the use of force to be rejected in settling disputes, banning nuclear weapons and opposing foreign military intervention.
Ecuador is part of Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative, an infrastructure development program that U.S. officials have criticized as a covert vehicle for expanding China’s power and influence in the developing world.
China’s state-owned Sinohydro Corp. is currently building a hydroelectric plant in Ecuador and a subsidiary of that company, PowerChina, is slated to take over a dam in the country that supplies 30% of its electricity.
China also supplied Ecuador with video monitoring and facial recognition equipment and technology that can be used for Chinese-style population surveillance.
The Trump administration has pressed governments in the hemisphere to crack down on crime and migration and a number of governments are moving closer to U.S. positions, including Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica and Honduras.
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Bill Gertz
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