By: Staff Writer
June 30, 2023
A United Stats Congressional Service report reveals deep concerns the US has with China’s growing influence in Latin-America and the Caribbean, least of which is the healthy trade balance The People’s Republic of China has with the region and more to do with China’s involvement in illicit fentanyl trafficking and other national security implications for the region.
The US “Congressional Research Service report, China’s Engagement with Latin America and the Caribbean,” outlines for the Congress the PRC’s growing trade with LAC member countries. The report laid out concerns about the PRC’s role in the production of illicit fentanyl, a synthetic opioid roughly fifty times more potent than heroin. Currently, most U.S.-destined illicit fentanyl comes from Mexico, using chemical precursors sourced from the PRC.
This prompted the US Congress to introduce legislation dealing comprehensively with fentanyl trafficking at all levels of its production chain. The Senate has prioritized efforts to combat international trafficking in precursor chemicals and covered synthetic drugs with the Government of Mexico, the primary fentanyl trafficking country, and to provide for the imposition of sanctions PRC individuals and entities contributing to international proliferation and production of illicit drugs.
In the years immediately prior to 2019, China was the primary source of U.S.-bound illicit fentanyl, fentanyl related substances, and production equipment. Chinese traffickers supplied fentanyl and fentanyl-related substances directly to the United States via international mail and express consignment operations.
Trafficking patterns changed after the PRC imposed class-wide controls over all fentanyl-related substances, effective May 2019. Today, Mexican transnational criminal organizations (TCOs) are largely responsible for the production of U.S.-consumed illicit fentanyl, using PRC-sourced primary materials, including precursor chemicals that are not internationally controlled (and are correspondingly legal to produce in and export out of China). According to DEA assessments cited by the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission in 2021, PRC traffickers and money launderers appear to have increased cooperation with Mexican cartels.
The report also noted the PRC’s continued push to isolate Taiwan from the rest of the world as Caribbean and Central American countries are some of the last few jurisdictions to recognize Taiwan as the Republic of China. Those countries are: Belize, Guatemala, Haiti, St Lucia, St Kitts and Nevis, St Vincent and the Grenadines.
The report said: “One of Beijing’s goals in the region appears to be to isolate Taiwan by incentivizing LAC countries to end formal diplomatic ties with the self-governing democracy, over which the PRC claims sovereignty, and which officially calls itself the ‘Republic of China.’ Currently, seven governments in LAC (out of 13 governments worldwide) maintain formal diplomatic relations with Taiwan. The remaining 26 maintain formal diplomatic relations with the PRC. Since 2017, five LAC governments have established formal diplomatic relations with the PRC, ending their formal recognition of Taiwan; the country to do this most recently was Honduras in March 2023.”
The report also said: “The Biden Administration’s National Security Strategy describes China as a strategic competitor but maintains that the Administration will refrain from seeing the world ‘solely through the prism of strategic competition.’ It states that because the Western Hemisphere impacts the United States more than any other region, the Administration will further deepen partnerships in LAC to advance economic resilience, democratic stability, and citizen security. It also vows to help protect LAC from ‘external interference or coercion, including from the PRC.’”
It added: “The U.S. Southern Command (SOUTHCOM) has voiced concerns in recent years about China’s activities in LAC. Its 2023 posture statement asserted that the PRC has ‘the capability and intent to eschew international norms, advance its brand of authoritarianism, and amass power and influence at the expense of the existing and emerging democracies in our hemisphere.’ According to SOUTHCOM, the PRC is investing in critical infrastructure, including deep-water ports, cyber, and space facilities which ‘can have a potential dual use for malign commercial and military activities.’”