Latin America is increasingly heading in an autocratic direction as a result of influence from China, Iran, and Russia, and becoming more inhospitable to the United States, argues analyst Joseph Humire, the executive director of the Center for a Secure Free Society.
In 2009, the Chinese Community Party paid $350 million to join the Inter-American Development Bank. From there, China has been busy establishing dual-use infrastructure throughout the region, from deep water ports to satellite tracking stations. In the region, Venezuela is the most indebted to China, owing nearly $60 billion. “If you think China is simply doing this for economic ambitions, you’re not reading the tea leaves on how China operates. They’re buying a country. They’re buying the sovereignty of this country,” he said in an interview with Jan Jekielek on American Thought Leaders.
““We have this issue in Latin America where the region is going towards a much more autocratic direction. Democracy is kind of dying in the darkness, and Russia, China and Iran are positioning themselves to take advantage of all that.”
Joseph Humire is executive director of the Center for a Secure Free Society and a visiting fellow at the Heritage Foundation. An expert on asymmetric warfare, he has been looking closely at Latin America for 20 years.
“The Sino-Iranian connection, in many respects, is probably the most dangerous one, even more so than the Sino-Russian connection, which is more talked about, I think, in foreign affairs,” says Humire.
In this episode, we dive into how the China–Iran–Russia coalition is influencing the region, from Venezuela to Bolivia. We also discuss how this is impacting America and the greater Western world.
“If you think China is simply doing this for economic ambitions, you’re not reading the tea leaves on how China operates. They’re buying a country. They’re buying the sovereignty of this country,” says Humire. “Fundamentally, China is making Latin America a region more inhospitable to the United States.”
