China-Latin America

China has become Brazil’s No. 3 export destination after the U.S. and Argentina. These include iron ore, airplanes, soy beans and pulp. China also plans to invest over $3 billion in Brazilian infrastructure – ports, roads and railways -- while Brazil’s foreign ministry has hinted at some $5 billion in direct investment in China.

The link between Brazil and China connects the biggest emerging markets of the western and eastern hemispheres. In the words of Celso Amorim, brazil’s foreign minister, it could be part of a “certain reconfiguration of the world’s commercial and diplomatic geography.”

The long-standing friendship between China and Cuba only got warmer when China’s Hu Jin-tau and Cuba’s Fidel Castro announced after the 2004 APEC meeting in Chile that China will mine Cuba’s nickel as Castro cut off the use of dollars in Cuba.

In 2005 China joined the Inter-American Development bank, giving its construction companies access to the bank’s infrastructure projects.

China is able to develop its relationships in Latin America because of U.S. neglect and alienation of goodwill in the region. America’s relations with Argentina, Brazil, Cuba and Venezuela are anything but cordial – something the Latin American commodity and natural resource rich countries and China have decided to exploit to their mutual benefit.

While America has been squandering its goodwill and alienating its neighbors China has moved into its hemispheric backyard.