By: Staff Writer
July 24, 2026
The Atlantic Council in a new report on US investment in the Latin American and Caribbean (LAC) said that while the United States remains the largest foreign investor in the region, there are still gaps where the People’s Republic of China has increased its investment input well above that of the US.
The report said: “The United States is and remains the largest foreign investor in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) by multiple measures. Across the past two decades, no other country has come close to matching the scale, breadth, or consistency of US private-sector engagement in the region. US greenfield foreign direct investment (FDI) averages $28.7 billion per year, with a heterogeneous investment profile spanning energy, digital infrastructure, manufacturing, and services.
“But based on the US interests laid out in the 2025 National Security Strategy to enlist and expand partners across the hemisphere, there are gaps in how market logic has directed US investment.
“Mining is the starkest example. US greenfield investment in LAC’s mining sector is limited, averaging just $200 million per year between 2020 and 2024, while China invests twenty times more in the sector. And roughly 70 percent of US greenfield FDI since 2020 has flowed to just three economies: Mexico, Brazil, and Guyana. Measured relative to the size of host economies, US investment intensity has declined in strategically important and mineral-rich countries like Argentina, Chile, and Peru.”
The report continued: “However, Costa Rica shows that small economies with deliberate sector-specific strategies can attract US investment at intensities that rival much larger markets, offering a replicable model for the rest of the region.
“What makes US investment distinctly valuable is its quality. US greenfield FDI generates 65 percent more jobs per billion dollars than Chinese investment and 22 percent more than European investment, making it the most employment-productive capital available to the region.
“Beyond jobs, US companies’ unique concentration in knowledge-intensive sectors generates positive innovation diffusion across LAC, and no other foreign investor directs a higher share of capital to research and development in the region than the United States.
“But there is no room for complacency. China is gaining ground systematically across strategically sensitive sectors. In automotive manufacturing, China has reached effective investment parity with the United States for the first time.
“In logistics infrastructure, China has demonstrated the capacity to surge past the United States when opportunities arise, as the Port of Chancay in Peru illustrates.
“In mining, China already leads by a factor of twenty. And in 2025, while US greenfield FDI to LAC dropped significantly, a single Chinese company announced a $40 billion data center investment in Brazil, $12 billion more than the US annual average in LAC over two decades, demonstrating China’s capacity to compete dollar-for-dollar with US investment in the digital domain where American firms have historically been strongest.”