China has overtaken the United States in trade terms “in large swathes of Latin America,” according to a recent Reuters analysis of UN trade data from 2015-2021. Reuters added that “outside of Mexico, the top U.S. trade partner, China has overtaken the United States in Latin America and widened the gap last year.”
Although US President Joe Biden pledged to give Latin America higher priority, “current and former officials told Reuters that the United States had been slow to take concrete action and that China, a major buyer of grains and metals, simply offered more to the region in terms of trade and investment.”
