China in Latin America: August 2025

Mining: In August, a legal dispute between the Mexican government and Ganfeng Lithium, a Chinese mining company, halted production at a lithium mine in the state of Sonora.

Peru’s energy and mines ministry reported that the country’s copper production rose more than 7 percent year on year in June, driven by strong output from Chinese-financed mines. Gold exports from Peru to China roughly quadrupled in the first half of 2025, reaching nearly a billion dollars and exceeding the annual total in 2024.

Diplomacy: During a phone call on August 29 with Brazilian Foreign Minister Mauro Vieira, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said that China wants to strengthen cooperation between their two countries, both bilaterally and through the BRICS [Brazil, Russia, India, and China, et al.] bloc. Xi remarked that bilateral ties “are at their best moment in history.” Previously, Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has stated that he would discuss his country’s response to U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariffs with China, India, and other BRICS members regarding a possible joint bloc response.

Brazil also stationed an army general and rear admiral at its embassy in Beijing. Previously, the country had only ever stationed that level of military leadership at its embassy in Washington, DC.

Trade: Brazil and China announced a new trade route between the Port of Santana in the Brazilian state of Amapá and the Chinese Port of Zhuhai, reducing expenses and travel time for Brazilian products bound for the Chinese market.

Bloomberg reported that Mexico could increase tariffs on China when President Claudia Sheinbaum presents her government’s 2026 budget in September. The tariff hikes would target Chinese cars, textiles, and plastics to protect Mexico’s domestic manufacturing sector. Mexico’s ministry of the economy also initiated an antidumping investigation on imports of adult bicycles from China and imposed antidumping duties on Chinese footwear. The ministry extended its antidumping duty on certain Chinese steel products and polyester fibers used for clothing, upholstery, and household goods for another five years.

Still, Mexico’s trade deficit with China reached nearly $60 billion in the first half of 2025, a 3.3 percent increase compared to the same period last year.

China is increasingly looking to South America, for its soybean imports, at the expense of U.S. farmers. Chinese importers secured eight million metric tons of soybean imports from South America for September and roughly another four million tons for October.

Argentina’s national statistics institute also reported that Argentine exports to China were down 15 percent year on year over the first six months of 2025, and Argentina’s trade deficit with China ballooned to more than $5 billion, the highest-ever six-month balance.

In response to Trump’s tariffs on Brazil, the Chinese government granted 183 Brazilian coffee companies five-year export permits to send their goods to China.

Chinese ecommerce firms—such as Temu, SheIn, and AliExpress—have made significant inroads in the region. Several Latin American countries, including Chile, Ecuador, and Mexico, are starting to enact measures to counter the rapid inflow of cheap Chinese goods.

In July, Chinese-made vehicles accounted for 52 percent of all cars sold in Ecuador. In 2017, they accounted for just 8.5 percent.

In Nicaragua, local businesses are struggling to compete with cheap Chinese imports. Honduran shrimp exports, one of the country’s top exports, have declined sharply since the Central American country switched recognition from Taiwan to China. While two Chinese state-owned enterprises, Chinatex Corporation and China National Township Enterprises Co., signed deals to purchase more Honduran shrimp, expectations that China would substitute previously robust Taiwanese demand have not materialized. 

Investment: A new report from Fudan University’s Green Finance and Development Center found that although Chinese investment through its Belt and Road Initiative reached a new high in the first half of 2025, Latin America received less than 1 percent of investment and around 1 percent of construction contracts.

Guyanese Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo informed one news outlet that “Guyana has nothing to worry about” regarding U.S. sanctions on China Railway Construction Corporation Limited, which is building the $260 million Demerara Harbour Bridge. Jagdeo asserted that the sanctions would not halt construction of the bridge and other priority infrastructure projects.

At the end of July, Panama’s comptroller general filed two cases with the Panamanian Supreme Court against the Panama Ports Company, the owner of two ports at each end of the Panama Canal. CK Hutchison, a Hong Kong–based company, controls a 90 percent stake in Panama Ports Company and had agreed in March to sell Panama Ports Company, the two Panama Canal ports, and forty-one other ports to a consortium led by BlackRock and MSC, a Swiss-Italian shipping firm. The Chinese government’s opposition and a bid to include Cosco, a Chinese state-owned shipping company, as a veto-holding member of the new consortium, slowed the negotiations. Now that the exclusive negotiating window for BlackRock and MSC has elapsed, Cosco is attempting to secure, at minimum, a 20 to 30 percent stake in the deal.

China is doubling down on investing in Brazil. Great Wall Motors, a Chinese auto manufacturer, had its opening ceremony at its new factory in Iracemápolis, São Paulo. The factory is expected to produce fifty thousand automobiles yearly. The Brazilian government is also negotiating with Chinese battery producer Contemporary Amperex Technology Co., Limited to manufacture batteries in the South American country.

Jorge Quiroga, one of two candidates vying for the Bolivian presidency, announced that he would cancel lithium agreements with China and Russia if elected.

Reuters reported that China Concord Resources Group is investing more than $1 billion in two Venezuelan oil fields that will produce around sixty thousand barrels of crude oil per day by the end of next year. The Chinese company struck a twenty-year production-sharing agreement with the Venezuelan government in May 2024 to operate in those two oil fields. Currently, China purchases more than 90 percent of Venezuela’s oil exports.

Pedro Chira, president of the Peruvian state-owned company Perupetro, announced that China National Petroleum Corporation will invest around $500 million in a natural-gas production project in Cusco, Peru.

China’s ambassador to Colombia, Zhu Jingyang, announced that China was establishing a group of experts to advise and work with Colombia’s National Infrastructure Agency on railway projects.

China Railway Construction Corporation won a contract for a railway project in Santiago, Chile.

Ecuador’s Foreign Minister Gabriela Sommerfeld announced that the South American country had received a new $600 million line of credit from China. Petroecuador inked a new deal with China National Petroleum Corporation to boost natural gas production in the Gulf of Guayaquil.

Money Laundering: The Peruvian attorney general’s office is investigating China Civil Engineering Corporation for money laundering related to infrastructure projects in at least five regions in Peru, totaling more than $145 million.

U.S.-China Competition in the Western Hemisphere: During an event held by the Atlantic Council’s Adrienne Arsht Latin America Center and the National Business Association of Colombia, U.S. Senator Bernie Moreno (R-OH) stated that Colombia needs to choose either the United States or China.

U.S. Ambassador to Panama Kevin Cabrera labeled Panama Ports Company, a subsidiary of CK Hutchison, “a bad operator” and stated that the Trump administration would support initiatives to remove the company as an operator in Panama Canal ports.

Alvin Holsey, commander of U.S. Southern Command, remarked in Buenos Aires, Argentina,  that China was seeking to “export its authoritarian model, extract resources, and build dual-use infrastructure” in Latin America. Holsey’s comments were rejected by China’s foreign ministry.