Heine on How Trump’s Latin America Strategy Opens New Doors for China
In a recent Weekend Essay for Bloomberg titled Trump’s Hard Line in Latin America Leaves China Room to Maneuver, published on January 16, 2026, Ambassador Jorge Heine, former Chilean diplomat and professor at the Pardee School of Global Studies, argues that the Trump administration’s hard-line approach toward Latin America is reshaping the region’s geopolitical landscape—while unintentionally creating new opportunities for China. Using the January 2026 U.S. military intervention in Venezuela as a starting point, Heine describes the action as a historic turning point: “This was the first US military attack on the South American mainland ever, in 200 years of the region’s independent history. A threshold has been crossed, and we ignore it at our peril.” He situates the intervention within a broader strategic shift outlined in Washington’s National Security Strategy 2025, which revives an aggressive interpretation of the Monroe Doctrine aimed at curbing China’s growing influence in the Western Hemisphere.
Heine emphasizes that China’s economic presence in Latin America has become too significant to reverse through coercion. Over the past two decades, Sino–Latin American trade has increased forty-fold, and China is now the leading trading partner for much of South America. Chinese investment in infrastructure, energy, and manufacturing has helped sustain regional economies during periods of weak growth and limited access to international credit. Even the fall of Nicolás Maduro—long a key Chinese partner—does not signal a retreat, Heine contends. “Curbing trade, investment and infrastructure projects with China would have major negative effects on a region already plagued by low growth and underperformance,” he writes, noting that Latin American economies are increasingly intertwined with Chinese markets.
Ultimately, Heine warns that Washington’s strategy of trying to exclude China from the region is both unrealistic and counterproductive. Rather than relying on military pressure and punitive measures, he argues, the United States would be better served by offering positive economic alternatives and engaging in genuine competition. “The way to keep primacy in the Americas,” he concludes, “is by competing with China, not by excluding it by military force or by other means. That will only trigger an enormous backlash.”
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A former research professor at the Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies, Jorge Heine is a diplomat, international relations scholar, and lawyer. He is currently a non-resident fellow at the Quincy Institute. He has served as an ambassador of Chile to China, India, and South Africa. Heine has written over fifteen books, including The Non-Aligned World: Striking Out in an Era of Great Power Competition (2025), which provides insights on how the Global South can navigate the changing diplomatic landscape amid the U.S.-China rivalry.