Tillerson to Latin America: Beware of China
It’s using economic leverage to pull the region into its orbit.
Rex Tillerson has made 18 foreign trips since he was confirmed as secretary of state on February 1, 2017: Only one them, a two-day visit to Mexico City early in his tenure, was south of the U.S. border.
Tillerson was back in Mexico City on Friday, the first stop in his first multi-country tour of Latin America and the Caribbean. But while U.S. officials were planning his trip, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi met late last month in Chile with 33 members of the them to become part of China’s Belt and Road Initiative, a massive infrastructure plan that aims to connect China to its Asian neighbors and farther afield. Chinese investment in these countries has raw-material extraction to car manufacturing, tech, and telecoms.
