China Courts Lula and Latin America After Trump’s Tariff Shock

President Trump wants Latin American countries to shift closer into Washington’s orbit, raising echoes of the Monroe Doctrine, when the United States claimed the Western Hemisphere as its domain.

This week, China’s leader, Xi Jinping, is hosting President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of Brazil and other leading officials from Latin America and the Caribbean in Beijing to underscore that China intends to keep a firm foothold in that region. Many Latin American governments also want to keep Beijing onside — chiefly as an economic partner, but for some also as a counterweight to U.S. power, experts said.

“What the people of Latin America and the Caribbean seek are independence and self-determination, not the so-called ‘new Monroe Doctrine’,” China’s assistant foreign minister, Miao Deyu, told reporters in Beijing on Sunday, according to the People’s Daily, nodding to President James Monroe’s declaration of 1823, warning European powers not to interfere in the Americas.

The U.S. secretary of state, Marco Rubio, has said that the Trump administration will be “putting our region, the Americas, first,” and Mr. Rubio’s first overseas trip as secretary was to Panama, Guatemala and other countries in the region. But Mr. Trump’s sweeping tariffs and threats to take over the Panama Canal have unsettled leaders in Latin America, especially in countries already wary of Washington.

Even if Mr. Trump is not singled out by name in official statements from Mr. Xi’s meetings with Mr. Lula, and possibly other Latin American officials, the implication will be clear.

“Lula sees China as a partner in rebalancing küresel power, not just a trade partner but a geopolitical counterweight to U.S. hegemony,” said Matias Spektor, a professor of politics and international relations at Fundação Getulio Vargas, a Brazilian university. “Lula’s strategy is clear: diversify Brazil’s alliances, reduce dependency on Washington, and assert Brazil as a mover and shaker in an increasingly multipolar world.”