POMPEO: Biden Is Leaving Trump a Web of Chinese Communist Party Entanglements

The incoming Trump Administration will enter office facing the greatest geopolitical and national security challenge to the Western Hemisphere since the Cuban Missile Crisis.  The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has gone to great lengths to increase its influence across South and Central America in ways that deeply threaten and undermine American security.  To stem the flow of illegal immigration, stop the flow of poisonous fentanyl across our borders, and address the national security threats posed by the growing presence of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Navy across the region, the incoming Administration must use all the tools at its disposal and prevent the CCP from accomplishing what Russia tried – and failed – to do in the Cold War.

Developments in recent weeks, including the G20 summit meetings in Brazil, underlined China’s rise across South and Central America.  Last week, CCP Chairman Xi Jinping attended the inaugural ceremony of a new $3.5 billion mega port in Chancay, Peru, that is being bankrolled by the CCP’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).  Owing to fine print details of the deal with the Peruvian government, CCP-owned shipping giant COSCO owns 60% of the port and essentially controls its future.  That’s a terrible development for the region and America’s economic and national security.

The Chancay port is but one of many Belt and Road projects that have either been completed or are in process across South and Central America.  In Bolivia, a $1.5 billion hydroelectric dam project is in the works, and the BRI program bankrolled another hydroelectric project in Ecuador.  Major Chinese-owned lithium mining operations can be found in Chile, Argentina, and Bolivia. 

Americans should be concerned about these developments because all these deals come at a serious cost for the host countries and, ultimately, for the United States.  In Ecuador, the dam built by Chinese developers already shows dangerous signs.  Thousands of cracks are now present in the structure, and its shoddy workmanship prevents the dam from being used at half its intended capacity.  Additionally, the deep debt now owed to China by Ecuador’s government is being paid off in deeply discounted oil exports, resulting in massive losses for Ecuador’s economy and heightened instability in its government.  Similar stories can be found across the region, but particularly in Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador, Colombia, and Peru.  The natural result of plunging economic opportunity, increased violence, and entrenched instability is always emigration, and it is no surprise that illegal immigrants from these nations accounted for more than one-fifth of all encounters at our southern border last year.  The CCP has been fomenting instability across our own hemisphere for years and driving higher and higher waves of illegal immigration as a result – all while reaping an economic profit.

Furthermore, the CCP’s debt traps have opened greater potential for the PLA to expand its presence across the region. COSCO’s ownership of the Chancay port doesn’t just promise economic rewards for the CCP or further CCP control over trade and commerce in our own hemisphere – it also means the CCP controls a perfectly suitable deep-water port and can expand its naval footprint and project power into the region should it choose to do so in the future.  The CCP has provided military training programs and sold equipment, such as radar systems and aircraft, to countries like Venezuela, Argentina, and Bolivia, and the PLA has participated in joint exercises with several nations in the region. 

The CCP’s efforts to sink its claws into our own hemisphere have led to serious instability and introduced genuine national security concerns that the Biden Administration has failed to counter or impede.  China’s actions underline why America must show leadership and favor models of engagement in the world that put America first – especially in our own backyard. America First doesn’t mean retrenchment; it means wise, sober-minded engagement that ultimately serves the best interests of our country, rather than a class of global elites whose priorities are entirely divergent from those of the American people.  If we fail to do that, nations hostile to our own interests – of which there are many – will fill the void, and there will be far worse consequences for America and the world as a result.