Heine Warns U.S. Cannot “Wish Away” China’s Embedded Presence in Latin America
In a new interview for Rearview by the ABC Radio National, Ambassador Jorge Heine, former Research Professor at the Pardee School of Global Studies, offered historical and geopolitical context on China’s expanding presence in Latin America amid renewed U.S. efforts to reassert influence in the Western Hemisphere. Heine underscored that China’s engagement with Latin America is far from new. “Those links go back all the way to the 16th century,” he explained, pointing to the Manila Galleon trade that connected Chinese manufacturing and Latin American silver for more than 250 years. This early exchange, Heine noted, was “the first modern globalization process that… connected China and Latin America.”
Turning to the 21st century, Heine emphasized the dramatic structural forces drawing the two regions together. “There is a remarkable complementarity between the Chinese economy and the South American economies,” he said. With China’s limited farmland and massive population, “China cannot feed itself. It will always depend on importing vast amounts of food.” South America, by contrast, has abundant water, agricultural land, and a small population — making it a crucial supplier. Today, about a quarter of China’s agricultural imports come from Brazil, Uruguay, Argentina, and Chile.
Heine also highlighted a period when Washington and Beijing cooperated openly in the region. “In the first decade of this century… they would discuss their common interest in how they could work in Latin America to boost growth in the region,” he recalled of U.S.–China dialogues between 2006 and 2014. “This sounds very outlandish today, but this in fact happened.”
But he stressed that U.S. disengagement coincided with China’s rise. “What we have seen… is growing disinterest of the United States, particularly in South America, in which U.S. companies have been disinvesting,” Heine said. As American and European firms departed, “Chinese companies move in.” He pointed to the electric‑vehicle manufacturer BYD taking over former Ford and Mercedes‑Benz facilities in Brazil as an example of this shift.
On high‑profile infrastructure projects like Peru’s Chancay port, Heine emphasized that Chinese involvement often fills vacuums left by the West. “Sometimes this is portrayed as a Chinese idea to take over a key port… In fact, it is the other way around.” Peruvian partners approached the U.S. and Europe first, he noted, but “there were no takers. They went to China… and Costco said yes.”
Looking ahead, Heine was clear that efforts to push China out of the region are unrealistic. “Some people say that Cuba might be next. Is the U.S. plan to expel China from Latin America realistic? I don’t think it is, because those links are now embedded. You cannot wish them away.”
He concluded that Washington’s current approach offers few incentives to regional partners. “The United States is not signing free trade agreements anymore. It is not offering market access… basically, U.S. policy is all sticks and no carrots.” That dynamic, he warned, shapes the geopolitical landscape in which U.S.–China competition increasingly unfolds.
The full segment can be listened to here.
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.