Trump geopolitics (3) - Towards the US-China war in Latin America and the Caribbean ? • The Red Team Analysis Society

(Art direction and design: Jean-Dominique Lavoix-Carli –
Photo: The USS Gerald R. Ford US DVIDS)

Thunder in the Caribbean

Since 17 August 2025, the US Southern Command has dramatically scaled up its presence and activity in the Caribbean. For example, the Command has deployed 4,000 Marines against narco-terrorist cartels.

There is also a massive naval build-up of forces in the vicinity of Venezuela. This massive build-up is both terrestrial and maritime (Mark F. Cancian, Chris H. Park, Trump’s Caribbean Campaign: the data behind the developing conflict, CSIS, 10 November 2025).

From military build-up…

Warships as well as bombers, spy planes, troops from the Marine Corps, and a fleet of drones compose this build-up. In mid-November, the USS Gerald Ford carrier and its combat group will be joining US forces in the Caribbean. Unseen but inextricably bound to the US military system are the satellite constellations.

They play a major role in communication, uplink redirection, observation, and targeting (Jean-Michel Valantin in The Red Team Analysis, “AI at War (1) – Ukraine”, 8 March 2024). It is those massive electronic and optronic capabilities that allow the US Navy to encompass the Caribbean zone of operations. That is how US Navy warships, helicopters, and drones have launched strikes. Since September, they have sunk 14 boats and one submarine, allegedly manned by narco-traffickers (Cancian and Park, ibid).

… To international competition

According to CSIS, China has heavily invested in numerous ports in Latin America and the Caribbean Sea (Henry Ziemer, Jaehyun Han and Hayden Power-Riggs, No Safe Harbor, Evaluating the risk of China’s port projects in Latin American and the Caribbean, CSIS, June 26, 2025). It is also the case in the countries that compose the isthmus from Panama to Mexico. The same thing happened on the Atlantic and Pacific coasts of Latin America.

Also according to CSIS, those ports have become de facto hubs of Chinese influence. So, the US Navy build-up takes place explicitly in order to strike at narco-traffic from Venezuela. However, one can also understand this force projection as an operation of counter-influence.

This new strategic situation raises the question: how to understand what is at stake? Indeed, why does this naval projection of power happen? Could it alter Chinese influence in the Latin America and Caribbean (LAC) region?

Whose Gulf, whose Caribbean Sea, whose Western Hemisphere ?

On 20 January 2025, during his inaugural address, President Trump declared that the US would take back the Panama Canal to China (The President, The Inaugural Dress, The White House, January 20, 2025).

Whose Gulf?

He also added that the Gulf of Mexico would be renamed the “Gulf of America” (The President, The Inaugural Address, The White House, January 20, 2025). Since this address, there have been many interpretations about this initiative. As the “Gulf of America” and the Caribbean Sea open onto each other through the Yucatan Channel. In other words, the renaming of the “Gulf of Mexico” may appear as a political/geopolitical operation.

It is strategic semantics that directly puts the Caribbean Sea under US political/geopolitical influence / unofficial sovereignty.

Whose Caribbean Sea?

Since 20 January, the US Executive branch has been very active regarding Mexico, Latin America, and the Caribbean. On 20 January, President Trump signed a series of executive orders that designate drug cartels as terrorist organizations. According to the phrasing of Executive Order 14157, cartels and other transnational organizations “threaten the safety of the American people, the security of the United States, and the stability of the international order in the Western Hemisphere.”

The State Department announced the designation of Tren de Aragua, Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13), Cártel de Sinaloa, Cártel de Jalisco Nueva Generación, Cártel del Noreste (formerly Los Zetas), La Nueva Familia Michoacana, Cártel de Golfo (Gulf Cartel), and Cárteles Unidos as Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTO) and Special Designated Global Terrorists (SDGT).

“The intent of designating these cartels and transnational organizations as terrorists is to protect our nation, the American people, and our hemisphere. That means stopping the campaigns of violence and terror by these vicious groups both in the United States and internationally. These designations provide law enforcement additional tools to stop these groups” (Marco Rubio, Secretary of State, Terrorist designations of International Cartels, Press Statement, U.S State department, February 20, 2025).

In other words, those official declarations and executive orders allow the mobilization of the whole US defense and national security apparatus against those transnational criminal organizations that originate and operate from Colombia, Venezuela, Central America, and Mexico to the United States.

The same day, President Trump signed a series of executive orders that define new sanctions against Venezuela and its executive branch. President Maduro chiefly among them, who is accused of supporting narco-terrorism. A $50 million reward is placed on his head.

Whose Panama Canal?

Then, as soon as February 2025, BlackRock, the giant US private equity fund, started negotiations with the Chinese Hong Kong-based CK Hutchinson (“China Blocks BlackRock’s $23 Billion Panama Canal Ports Deal: How Beijing Sank a Landmark Investment“, Defense News, July 11, 2025). The latter bought the Pacific and Atlantic terminals of the Panama Canal in 2021. This took place after Panama had joined the Chinese Belt & Road Initiative in 2017.

Then, in August 2025, the Trump administration hitBrazil with a 50% tariff hike (Josh Boak, “Trump signs order to justify 50% tariffs on Brazil”, AP, 31 July 2025). Two weeks later, the US Navy build-up in the Caribbean started, then the strikes against narco-trafficker boats began. In the same timeline, the Trump administration harshly condemns the Colombian government and slashes counter-narcotics aid funds.

Meanwhile, Javier Milei, president of Argentina, did benefit from strong political and financial support and aid from Washington D.C. For example, in the midst of the Argentinian legislative election campaign, Washington agreed to a 20 billion dollar swap deal with the Argentinian peso. This aid was meant to restore the Argentinian peso (“Argentina’s Javier Milei wins in decisive midterms as Trump loan looms large”, ABC, 27 October, 2025).

Whose Western Hemisphere?

These different actions and operations are all led under the political imperative of the “defense of the Western Hemisphere” encompasses the whole American continent from its northern to its southern extremities. As it happens in the US political and strategic tradition, he Western Hemisphere (John Mearsheimer, The Tragedy of Great Powers Politics, W. W. Norton & Company, 2014).

This point appears as being a core tenet of the current Latin American-Caribbean US Grand Strategy. Its political centrality reveals itself on 25 September, during President Trump’s speech to the annual United Nations General Assembly. On this occasion, he declared his admiration for former president James Monroe (1817-1825).

When James Monroe was in office, he devised a core US foreign policy doctrine based on the interdiction of foreign influences in the American continent. Thus, the Monroe Doctrine defines the whole of the American continent as being forbidden to any other great power influence, except the United States. From a historical point of view, this doctrine has been especially applied in the Caribbean and in Latin America (Mearsheimer, ibid).

In September 2025, President Trump revives this principle by rejecting “the interference of foreign nations in this hemisphere and in our own affairs.”

In the 19th century, the implementation of the Monroe Doctrine allowed the US to extirpate what was left of European influence in Latin America and the Caribbean. During the Cold War, hard strategies were devised to fight Soviet-communist Cuban influence in the “Southern Cone”, that is to say the continuity from Central America to Southern America and the Caribbean (Allen Frazier, “U.S Deploys F-35 fighters to Cold-war era Puerto Rico base as Venezuela tensions escalate”, Military.com, 04 November, 2025).

Thus, the declarations of President Trump and of his administration about the defense of the Western Hemisphere appear as being strongly coherent with current foreign and military policy in the Caribbean.

Nowadays, the LAC US foreign policy of defense of the Western Hemisphere seems to aim to directly target Chinese influence in the Southern Cone.

Fighting the BRI

Thus, we may interpret the US Naval build-up in the Caribbean and in the vicinity of Venezuela as being part of a large-scale strategy. This new strategy could be qualified as a “Monroe Doctrine-oriented – counter-influence strategy”. In that case, the strikes against vessels suspected of narco-trafficking seem to have several layers of strategic meaning.

Strike

They are indeed interventions against “narco-terrorist operations”. But one can understand them as well as demonstrations of the political will of the Trump administration to openly use military force against actors whose influence and operations the US no longer tolerates in the Western Hemisphere.

In order to evaluate the degree of risk associated with Chinese influence in LAC ports and maritime terminals, CSIS has devised an interactive ranking based on several indicators. According to this ranking, it appears that several Atlantic and Pacific LAC ports are at risk of Chinese influence ( Henry Ziemer, Jaehyun Han and Haidan Power-Riggs, “No Safe Harbor: Evaluating the Risk of China’s Ports projects in Latin America and the Caribbean“, CSIS, June 26, 2025) .

The indicators used by CSIS to define, from the US point of view, the level of risk associated with the Chinese presence in a LAC port point at the ways Chinese organizations can use LAC ports to gather intelligence, and having ties with the People’s Liberation Army or with the Chinese Communist Party, to have an important degree of control over supply chains.

As it happens, there is another category of risk, that are not part of the CSIS indicators, but that are often mentioned by members of the administration, that are Chinese criminal organizations shipping precursor chemicals for Fentanyl in LAC ports.

Fentanyl connection

This drug is an extremely dangerous synthetic opioid. Since 1999, Fentanyl has been responsible for more than 500,000 deaths. There have been one million lethal overdoses in the US over the last 26 years. Chinese criminal organizations ship chemical precursors for Fentanyl, that LAC criminal organizations receive (“Are Fentanyl overdose deaths rising in the US?”, USA Facts, 24 October 2025). Then, narco cartels transform the chemicals into Fentanyl,transport it and sell it in the US.

As of February 2025, The US administration reinforces its capabilities at the border. The aim of this mobilization is to fight the drug cartels, while degrading the flow of drugs exported in the US, especially of Fentanyl. That’s why US drones are patrolling Mexican skies at the Mexico-US border, while the Pentagon raises the number of troops on the border (Rojoef Manuel, “US Army testing AR goggles, anti-drone guns on Mexico border”, The Defense Post, August 22, 2025).

Iran and Russia in the Caribbean

However, it appears that the system of interactions between LAC ports and China’s influence is much more complex than indicated by CSIS. For China, projecting investments and companies in Latin America and its ports is part of its global projection all around the world, in order to gather and channel the multiple resources the “Empire of Middle” needs for its ultra-rapid development.

Thus, Latin America is an attractor for China because of its massive biological, mineral and energy deposits. In this regard, Latin America as the same function for China than it had for the United States since 1823 and the officialization of the “Monroe doctrine”.

Indeed, between 2013 and 2022, 22 of 46 Latin American and Caribbean states have adhered to the Chinese Belt & Road Initiative (BRI). This Grand Strategy is aimed at ensuring the constant flow of energy resources, commodities, and products from the outside world into China (Jean-Michel Valantin, “China” section, The Red Team Analysis Society).

Enter Iran

Facing this US military build-up, President Maduro has requested military support from Russia, China, and Iran. From a geopolitical point of view, it is important to note that these three countries are members of the “BRICS +” organization. And that, de facto, BRICS+ directly challenges US global influence (Fatma Zehra Solmaz, “Maduro turns to Moscow, Beijing Teheran as US presence builds in the Caribbean”, Anadolu Ajansi, 01 November 2025). Indeed, Iran and China are also part of the international network that supports Russia in its war against Ukraine.

And since 2006, at least, Iran has played a direct role in the Venezuelan oil industry. A fleet of Iranian tankers is shipping Iranian fuel to Venezuela. They then load Venezuelan oil and sell it to Iran, as well as China and India (Alfie Shaw, “Venezuela to strengthen Iran oil pact”, Offshore Technology, 14 March 2024). Despite the 25% tariffs imposed by the Trump administration on countries buying Venezuelan oil, the “Iran connection” allows Venezuela to maintain minimal activity in its oil industry.

Venezuelan terminals where these Iran-Venezuela fuel-oil swaps take place benefit from Chinese investments that help maintain this vital infrastructure in operational condition. Among those terminals, the port of Puerto Cabello is of special interest. This port exports chemicals, among them petroleum products. It is also connected to refineries in the hinterland. The CSIS report pinpoints the Puerto Cabello port as being at a “34% risk level” due to Chinese influence (Ziemer et al., ibid).

However, it is hard to imagine how the current US administration could keep on tolerating the Iran presence in its own sphere of influence, given the state of tensions with the Islamic republic. Especially after the U.S bombing on Iran nuclear sites duing he Israel-Iran war in June 2025 (Jean-Michel Valantin, “AI at War (5) – Israel, Iran and the New (AI) Way of War“, The Red Team Analysis Society, June 30, 2025) ?

China in Latin America

As it happens, those flows of resources are necessary for the current industrial and capitalist development of the 1.4 billion strong “Middle Kingdom” (Jean-Michel Valantin, “China and the New Silk Road – From oil wells to the moon … and beyond”, The Red (Team) Analysis Society, July 6, 2015). China has been deploying the BRI, which attracts the interest and commitment of numerous Asian, African, and Middle Eastern countries. The BRI is an expression of Chinese philosophical and strategic thought that was started in 2013(Valantin, “China and the New Silk Road: the Pakistani strategy”, The Red Team Analysis, May 18, 2015).

It is grounded in an understanding of the spatial dimension of China, in the geographic sense. In the Chinese conception of things, space is a medium to spread Chinese influence and power to the “outside”. But it also allows the Middle Kingdom to “draw in” what it needs from the “outside” to the “inside” (Quynh Delaunay, Naissance de la Chine moderne, L’Empire du Milieu dans la globalisation, 2014). This is why we qualify some spaces as being “useful” to the deployment of the BRI. That is why each “useful space” is related, and “useful”, to other “useful spaces”.

Useful ports

In the LAC area, the BRI manifests its influence through, among other venues, massive Chinese investments in ports. It is the case, for example, of the Jamaican port of Kingston (Ziemer, ibid). However, in the case of the fusion of the Chinese BRI and LAC ports, the nature of the risk appears as being deeply linked to the way China attracts LAC commodities.

Indeed, de facto, those commodities “shift” away from the US sphere of influence and economy. In the same dynamic, they become a medium for Chinese social, economic, technological, and political development.

Useful LAC

In the same dynamic, the different countries that become involved in the deployment of the BRI become its “useful spaces”. Hence, the LAC continental region is a fundamental “useful space” for China. As a result, LAC ports are de facto of great interest for the BRI. Indeed, they are points of access to LAC commodity basins. Thus, those become useful spaces.

Thus, Chinese investments in LAC ports increase the LAC region capabilities to respond to Chinese commodity needs. De facto, those resources are extracted from the Southern Cone.

Port wars as resources wars

However, as we have seen, since the publication of the Monroe Doctrine in 1823, the US authorities consider this region as being the US sphere of direct influence and control.

Thus, the reinforcement of the US military presence in the Caribbean Sea appears to be of dramatically strong strategic significance.

US Power projection…

Obviously, the US Navy and CIA impose mounting military and political pressure upon President Maduro’s regime.

Furthermore, this pressure keeps on mounting. Since September 2025, The US Air Force has been utilizing the Cold War-era Air base in Puerto Rico. On top of this, the USS Gerald Ford, the mightiest of the US carrier fleet, is pre-positioned in the Caribbean Sea in mid-November (Bernd Debusmann Jr, “US Aircraft carrier group arrives in Caribbean”, BBC, 12 November 2025). All this massive military presence points at a strong political affirmation and defense of US national interests, both in the Caribbean as well as throughout the whole Western Hemisphere.

That is why, in this context, it is important to keep in mind that, from World War II to the end of the 1990s, Venezuela was the main foreign supplier of oil to the United States. This ended with the advent of the Chávez socialist regime in 1998.

Since then, bad management and the US sanctions regime have blocked the flow of Venezuelan oil towards the US. However, as seen, the Chinese investments in ports and Iran’s oil swap policy are reorienting this flow outside of the US sphere of influence (Mohammed Added, “Venezuela has the world’s most oil: Why doesn’t it earn more from exports?”, Al Jazeera, 4 September 2025).

Also, it is worth noting that this US build-up takes place in the area of the Atlantic point of entry of the Panama Canal. As it happens, Panama is one of the 22 LAC countries that are members of the Chinese BRI.

… vs Chinese influence

At the same time, those resources are no longer available to the United States. Their exports of commodities sustain China’s resiliency against US tariffs, while powering Chinese well-being and economic growth.

For example, the Pacific port of Chancay, in Peru, is now a hub between Asia, and especially China, and Peru. Through roads and railways, it is also becoming a terrestrial hub between Columbia, Ecuador, Chile, Bolivia, and Brazil. COSCO, the main Chinese shipbuilder and shipowner, has invested 3.5 billion dollars in the modernization of the Chancay mega-terminal (“Brazil, China discuss railway from Peruvian port to Brazil territory”, The Strait Times, 10 May 2025).

Thus, the Chancay port supports the Chinese importations of commodities as well as products exports. Thus, it si also a strategic entry in LAC Pacific side, thus a way to mitigate the US trade tariffs ( Jean-Michel Valantin, “Trump Geopolitics (2) – The US vs China geoeconomic war”, The Red Team Analysis Society, May 5, 2025).

Linking Atlantic to Pacific

As it happens in all the countries that adhere to the Chinese BRI, Chinese companies build several of those infrastructures. Brazil is not a BRI member, but it is a founding member of BRICS+. In November 2024, President Xi Jinping was present for the inauguration of the port of Chancay. Since then, discussions have started between the Brazilian government and Chinese operators in order to connect Chancay to the south of Brazil.

Furthermore, this would connect Chancay with the complex of mines of the “Lithium Valley”. This mining complex is currently being developed in Minas Gerais, the fourth largest state by area and the second largest in number of inhabitants in Brazil, and the- neighboring among others the province of Bahia.

Thus, lithium could be transported to Chancay, then shipped to China. Those exports would support the massive lithium-ion battery industries, central to the development of electric cars and data centers for Chinese AI (Anne Barbosa and Adriana Carvahlo, “Lithium leap: Brazil makes journey to become a leading supplier”, S&P Global, 15 August 2024).

However, it appears that since August 2025, when the Trump administration imposed 50% tariffs on Brazil, Washington. has become quite proactive in reasserting US dominance in the Southern Cone. And that happens while negotiations take place between China and LAC countries about those mammoth resource extraction and transport deals.

So, this begs the question of knowing if the Trump administration has decided to “take back control” of the Western Hemisphere for the long run. And what the strategic consequences for LAC countries as well as for US-China relations are going to be? And what will happen if armed force is used against the Maduro regime?

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Trump geopolitics (3) – Towards the US-China war in Latin America and the Caribbean ?