China-Celac Forum to kick off
May 12, 2025
The China-Celac Forum ministerial meeting will start in Beijing tomorrow — the presidents of Brazil, Colombia and Chile are in China for the event. The China-CELAC Forum challenges long-standing U.S. geopolitical and economic dominance in Latin America and the Caribbean — at precisely a moment when the Trump administration is seeking to challenge Chinese inroads in the region. (Reuters)
There are 33 members of the CELAC, which has sought to position itself as an alternative regional forum to the Organization of American States (OAS), which many say is too influenced by the United States.
Chinese President Xi Jinping’s diplomacy this week aims to underscore that China intends to keep a firm foothold in that region, reports the New York Times — a sentiment shared by many Latin American governments also want to keep Beijing onside — chiefly as an economic partner, but for some also as a counterweight to U.S. power.
“China has been trying to marshal a global coalition against what it called an "abuse of tariffs" by the United States,” reports Reuters.
Two-thirds of Latin American countries have joined Beijing's trillion-dollar Belt and Road (BRI) infrastructure program, and China has surpassed the U.S. as the biggest trading partner of Brazil, Peru and Chile, reports AFP.
Colombian President Gustavo Petro has expressed interest in joining the Belt and Road Initiative, and Chilean President Gabriel Boric said he would participate in the summit in order to position his country as “a relevant actor in promoting multilateralism,” in the face of Trump’s protectionism. (El País, Infobae)
Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva arrived in Beijing on Saturday for a state visit, and spoke out against the “bullying” of Latin America and unilateral sanctions against countries in the region. He said on social media that “we will be establishing new partnerships and signing cooperation agreements in multiple areas.” (South China Morning Post)
More Regional Relations
“Lula has built a career on unwavering leftist principles, but he has also long prided himself on his ability to get along with a variety of leaders,” writes Jon Lee Anderson in the New Yorker. “Now, though, he confessed that he was flummoxed by the right-wing populists and anti-globalists gaining power around the world.”
This is Lula’s third face-to-face meeting with Xi Jinping since the Brazilian president took office in 2023, the visit is expected to yield over a dozen deals and new investment announcements from grains to railways. Brasilia hopes it can supply some goods the U.S. currently sends to China, which have become costlier following Beijing's tariffs in response to steep tariffs imposed by Trump, reports Reuters.
Brazil announced two Chinese partnerships earlier today, including a $1 billion investment by China's Envision Energy to produce sustainable aviation fuel, reports Reuters.
Econ 101 from the New York Times: New U.S. tariffs will make Brazilian beef more expensive in the U.S., and will also make those exports more alluring for China, reeling from its own trade war with the U.S.
Lula slammed U.S. tariffs on Friday, meeting with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin in Moscow on Friday. "The latest decisions by the U.S. president to unilaterally put tariffs on trade with all countries in the world undermine the great idea of free trade and strengthening multilateralism," Lula said during a bilateral meeting with Putin. (Reuters)
Deportations
A coalition of migrant rights lawyers representing the families of Venezuelans deported by the U.S. to El Salvador filed a lawsuit before the Inter-American Commission of Human Rights, accusing Nayib Bukele’s government of illegally incarcerating their relatives, reports the New York Times.
“The Trump administration is considering suspending the writ of habeas corpus, the legal right to challenge one’s detention… Suspending habeas corpus would be an extremely aggressive move that would dramatically escalate the Trump administration’s efforts to attack the rule of law in American courts as it tries to deport people without giving them a chance to challenge the basis of their removals,” reports The Guardian. (Via Americas Migration Brief)
El Salvador
El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele shared images of gang members in a mega-prison on Saturday, aimed at discrediting a report from El Faro about an alleged pact with street gangs that helped him rise to power in 2019, reports AFP. (See May 2’s post.)
Argentina
Activist Juan Grabois warns that Milei’s Argentina is seen as a test case for “a transnational alliance of libertarian think tanks, financial elites, and far-right agitators.” In a Newsweek op-ed he writes: “Argentina is not yet lost. But its democracy is in grave danger. The libertarian dystopia being tested in our country is one where markets rule and the vulnerable are left to die. We must say no.”
The Argentine Supreme Court has found documentation associated with the Nazi regime among its archives including propaganda material that was used to spread Adolf Hitler’s ideology in the South American nation, reports the Associated Press.
The hit Netflix series The Eternaut has reinvigorated the permanent search for the babies appropriated by Argentina’s last military dictatorship — the author of the comic strip that inspired the series, Héctor Oesterheld, was disappeared along with his four daughters, two of whom were pregnant at the time, and their husbands. (Guardian)
Since the series was released earlier this month, Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo has received an exponential number of inquiries from people who believe they might have been born to mothers in clandestine detention during the last dictatorship, reports Infobae.
Regional Relations
Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro signed a series of “strategic partnership” agreements with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin — one of the few world leaders who recognized Maduro as the winner of last July’s presidential elections. Venezuela’s government is struggling to shore up its finances in the face of renewed U.S. sanctions, reports El País.
Colombia’s government granted asylum to Ricardo Martinelli, a former president of Panama who had been sheltering for more than a year in the Nicaraguan Embassy in Panama City to evade a prison sentence for money laundering, reports the New York Times.
Ecuadorian President Daniel Noboa has said he’s sought assistance from Israel and the United Arab Emirates to combat criminal organizations in his country, reports AFP.
Mexico
A mayoral candidate for the ruling Morena party and three of her supporters were shot dead yesterday at a campaign event Mexico’s Veracruz state. Footage posted online during a Facebook Live broadcast by the politician shows people running and screaming as gunshots ring out at a procession of motorcycles and supporters carrying Morena flags, reports AFP.
José Asunción Murguía Santiago, the mayor of Teuchitlán in Mexico’s Jalisco state, was charged last week with of colluding with the Jalisco New Generation Cartel to operate a recruitment and training center that was uncovered in March, reports the New York Times.
Mexico has sued Google for changing the Gulf of Mexico’s name to “Gulf of America” for Google Maps users in the United States, President Claudia Sheinbaum announced last week. (Guardian)