China Has Been Building Influence for Years. How Will Trump Respond?
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How has China expanded its influence through the Belt and Road Initiative?
Panama, where China had been building influence through its Belt and Road Initiative, the trillion-dollar infrastructure lending program Beijing has used to plant its flag in more than 150 countries. Trump's vow to seize back the canal and push out China is part of a broader and still evolving approach to counter Beijing in places where a lack of U.S. presence or interest has allowed a new partner to move in. I'm Luke Vargas for The Wall Street Journal. And in today's final episode of our What's News Sunday series, Building Influence, my colleague Daniel Bach will be looking at what the U.S. has done to respond to Belt and Road and whether Trump's early actions in office could signal a new, more aggressive approach.
What is President Trump's strategy concerning China's influence in Panama?
China's involved with the Panama Canal. They won't be for long. And that's the way it has to be. Marco just got back, as you know. He's in the process of...
In the early days of Donald Trump's second term, he dispatched America's top diplomat, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, to a surprising place for a first trip abroad. Panama in Central America became ground zero for Trump's plan to hit back at China's growing influence in America's backyard. 4% of global trade is ferried along Panama's 50-mile canal between the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, and Trump was threatening to take control of it. The significance of the decision was clear. Panama was the first Latin American nation to officially join Beijing's Belt and Road Initiative back in 2017. That same year, it dropped its diplomatic recognition of Taiwan in favor of establishing ties with China. Since then, China's built or financed a canal bridge, a new subway line, a cruise ship terminal, a convention center, and a wind energy farm there.
It's those projects, along with port infrastructure, that a Hong Kong-based company has operated on either side of the canal that Trump says violate U.S.-Panama treaties, treaties that required the canal to remain neutral after it was turned over by the U.S. a quarter century ago. Just this past week, word came that a group of investors led by BlackRock had agreed to buy majority stakes in the ports for about $23 billion. A change in ownership could go a long way toward addressing the administration's concerns, though an executive from the port's Hong Kong owner said the deal was purely commercial. As for those U.S. concerns, in an interview with Fox News, Rubio said that Chinese-owned infrastructure gives Beijing leverage over the waterway.
We cannot continue to have the Chinese and through their companies exercising effective control of the canal area.
Before he left for a five-country tour through Central America, Rubio wrote in a Wall Street Journal op-ed that the Chinese Communist Party uses economic and diplomatic pressure, including at the canal, to, quote, turn sovereign nations into vassal states.
How did Panama respond to U.S. pressure to cut ties with China?
China's foreign ministry says Beijing respects Panama's sovereignty over the canal and that China has never participated in managing and operating it. But Trump ratcheted up the rhetoric, saying if Panama doesn't limit China's influence... We're going to take it back or something very powerful is going to happen. Trump got a lot of pushback. Panamanian officials and several former U.S. military officials, including a former NATO commander, say Chinese-built infrastructure there doesn't breach the canal's neutrality, let alone show that Panama's come under the influence of Beijing. But journal reporter Vera Bergen-Gruen was on the Latin America trip with Rubio, and she says the administration's threats were heard loud and clear.
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Chapters
5 chapters
1
How has China expanded its influence through the Belt and Road Initiative?
0:33–1:22
2
What is President Trump's strategy concerning China's influence in Panama?
1:22–3:34
3
How did Panama respond to U.S. pressure to cut ties with China?
3:34–8:49
4
What are the U.S. and Western countries doing to counter China's Belt and Road Initiative?
8:49–13:19
5
Why is it challenging for the U.S. to compete with China's global financial influence?
13:19–18:37
Speakers
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