In South America, Trump already losing a trade battle with China

Eduardo Baptista - Reuters - 11/11
In South American copper giant Peru, the incoming Donald Trump White House will find itself already on the losing side in a trade battle with China, part of a bigger power realignment around the resource-rich region in Washington's backyard.
  • Chinese presence has grown rapidly in South America
  • Xi expected to attend APEC summit in Lima
  • China ahead of US on trade with Peru
LIMA/BEIJING, Nov 11 (Reuters) - In South American copper giant Peru, the incoming Donald Trump White House, opens new tab will find itself already on the losing side in a trade battle with China, part of a bigger power realignment around the resource-rich region in Washington's backyard.
Peru, the world's no. 2 copper exporter, is set to host Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation leaders this week, with China's President Xi Jinping expected to attend and inaugurate a major new Chinese-built port in the country. Outgoing U.S. President Joe Biden is also on the guest list.
Peru reflects a wider challenge for the White House around South America, where China's presence has grown rapidly given its huge appetite for the region's main exports: corn, copper, soy, beef and battery-metal lithium.
That's made Beijing the go-to trade partner from Brazil to Chile and Argentina, eroding Washington's regional political clout, a trend that widened under Trump's 'America First' inward turn during his first administration and again under Biden.
"The strategic value is that this is the United States' backyard," said Li Xing, professor at the Guangdong Institute for International Strategies, adding it helped counter U.S. presence around the Indo-Pacific and offset trade war risks.
"China can't start by building military bases there because it's too sensitive and will make China's conflict with the United States too pronounced... So it has made inroads with economic ties first."
Peru demonstrates the dramatic shift. China's trade lead there over the United States widened to $16.3 billion last year, UN Comtrade data show, a stark reversal of just a decade ago when Washington was the dominant player. That's come hand-in-hand with investment from energy to mining.
China overtook the United States in 2015 on trade with Peru, widening the gap under Trump's previous administ...
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