Ecuadorian President Guillermo Lasso’s visit to Washington this week prompted urgent calls from Capitol Hill for the President to do more to counter China’s growing influence in South America.
Lasso met with Biden on Monday at the White House with a nearly-done Chinese free trade agreement in his back pocket. A similar pact between China and Uruguay is also underway.
While free trade agreements are unpopular with U.S. voters, confronting China isn’t. This may explain why two senior members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Democrat Robert Menendez and Republic Rob Portman called on U.S. Trade Representative Katerine Tai to use the U.S.-Mexico-Canada trade pact as a model for other “trusted partners” in the Americas as part of an effort to challenge China’s dominance in the region.
Separately, Florida Senator and possible presidential candidate Marco Rubio sent a strongly worded letter on Monday to Scott Nathan, head of the U.S. Development Finance Corporation, to channel more of the agency’s financing to Ecuador to “safeguard [the country] from the CCP’s expanding global network of mass oppression.”
Key Highlights of Senators’ Demands For the White House to do More to Counter China in the Americas:
- SENATOR MARCO RUBIO: “While the Biden Administration continues to assert that the U.S. is the ‘partner of choice’ for Ecuador and other Latin American countries, governments and civil society in the region bemoan the lack of American-led, and other Western alternatives, to the Chinese Communist Party’s current and future investments.” (MARCO RUBIO’S SENATE WEBSITE)
- SENATORS ROBERT MENENDEZ & ROB PORTMAN: “Without further U.S. engagement [in Ecuador and Uruguay], however, the US risks losing market-access opportunities for American companies and the potential erosion of our influence in the region relative to China” (BLOOMBERG)
SUGGESTED READING:
- The Atlantic Council: As China’s influence grows, Biden needs to supercharge trade with Ecuador by Isabel Chiriboga
- Geopolitical Intelligence Services: China’s evolving economic footprint in Latin America by John Polga-Hecimovich
