Southern Command Launches an Attack on China and Russia in Latin America

September 23, 2024

Laura Richardson, leader of the U.S. military’s Southern Command, recently called for the development of a new “Marshall Plan”, aimed at Latin America to counter the growing influence of Russia and China in the region.

During the annual security forum of the Aspen Institute, a platform that has become one of the most reactionary and belligerent spaces in the post-World War II geopolitical landscape, she said: “I firmly believe that we need a Marshall Plan for the region”. Her appeal is consistent with the ideological coordinates that have characterized the forum for decades.

Richardson’s call reflects the deep concern of the United States over the undeniable loss of geopolitical and economic influence in Latin America. Although he presented the proposal at the forum as a “humanitarian aid” and economic reconstruction effort, it is essentially an attempt to counter the growing presence of emerging powers of the multipolar world in the region.

The widespread rhetoric about the “severe economic recessions” caused by the pandemic was used as a mechanism to justify a program of economic and political intervention, similar to U.S. expansionist efforts during the Cold War. As with the Marshall Plan, presented as a supposedly disinterested effort to rebuild Europe after the war, the intention is to reshape Latin American socio-economic structures in order to recompose U.S. hegemony.  The growing influence of China, through its Belt and Road Initiative, and the strengthening of trade relations with Russia, offer alternatives to the framework of partnership with Washington, the real motive behind this maneuver.

“And we don’t have those kinds of tools in our arsenal. How can we help? I firmly believe we need a Marshall Plan for the region or, what amounts to the same thing, an economic recovery act like 1948, but in 2024, 2025,” she told the Aspen Security Forum audience of senior national security officials, lawmakers and key defense and technology industry representatives.

Richardson’s statement that “economic security and national security go hand in hand in this hemisphere” would explain in itself why it is from that military area that such statements are made, which would have to come, in any case, from the ramifications of the State Department. It is evident that for the United States military security is an extension of economic security and strategic interests; therefore, Latin America is considered a territory to be controlled.The insistence on combining the economic with the military is supported by a narrative that criminalizes economic cooperative relations between Beijing and Latin American states.

“If [the Belt and Road] is to do good in the hemisphere, then I’m all for it. But it makes me a little suspicious when it comes to critical infrastructure […] deepwater ports, 5G, cybersecurity, energy, outer space.”

The Southern Command, in line with the guidelines of the latest  National Security Strategies  characterizes its geopolitical rivals as agents of global challenges that demand urgent attention. In this framework, Latin America and the Caribbean are conceived as strategic points whose protection is considered essential against networks of “transnational threats” that the United States uses as justification for its actions.

In fact, at the forum, the Commander of the Southern Command accused China and Russia of benefiting from “transnational criminal organizations” operating in various illicit activities in the continent: “From drug and human trafficking to illegal mining, logging and fishing in the southern areas”. In the case of Venezuela and its geopolitical allies, accusations related to these elements become a recurrent resource.

Kelley Beaucar Vlahos, senior media advisor at the Quincy Institute, questions the logic of this strategy that places the military at the center of U.S. foreign policy.

“We should be asking why it is the military that is calling the shots when it comes to raising the real issues. Where are the diplomats? Is this just another argument for putting more military eyes and means in the region?” asks Vlahos.

The lack of U.S. attention to Latin America is another weakness Richardson exposed. The dearth of high-level visits creates a vacuum that China exploits, she argues. According to her, regional leaders do not see U.S. investment. In contrast, “all they see are Chinese cranes and Belt and Road Initiative projects.”

“So what I would ask all of you and those you know is that I need more visitors in the Western Hemisphere. I need more visitors in the Caribbean. I need more visitors in Central America. I need more visitors in South America,” she told the forum.

Her exhortation is not aimed precisely at establishing constructive collaborations but is part of a project characterized by blackmail, opportunism and threats. This policy relegates offers of cooperation to the background, while accentuating the instrumentalization of sanctions as a central tool to shape the behavior of nations that are reluctant to align themselves with U.S. interests.

In Latin America, Venezuela, Cuba and Nicaragua are the targets of this pressure, evidence of the coercive nature of U.S. foreign policy.

China and Latin America: a mutually beneficial relationship

In contrast to the U.S. vision of geopolitical competition, Beijing proposes global cooperation, as reflected in its last  Communist Party Congress. It seeks to strengthen economic openness by promoting a new paradigm of collaboration at the highest level, as well as greater integration into the global governance system. Its approach is based on international synergy, a multipolar order and inclusive economic globalization.

The new concept of Russian foreign policy, adopted on March 31, 2023, focused on cooperation with non-Western states, should also be mentioned. The document stresses in particular the intention to deepen mutually beneficial relations with Latin America and the Caribbean, including military cooperation, to help these countries cope with U.S. pressures.

This approach is presented as Russia’s response to the escalation of Western coercive economic policy, and expresses the need to create “global trade, monetary and financial systems” to counter the abuse of “monopolistic or dominant position in certain areas of the world economy”.

In Latin America, China’s economic and trade strategy focuses on access to raw materials and agricultural goods, the opening of markets for goods and services, and cooperation in infrastructure and energy, with a particular focus on key resources such as lithium.

Beijing seeks to increase its presence in the region, as does the United States, but with the enormous distance of doing so through mutually beneficial agreements. Such a perspective is defined in the “Policy Paper on Latin America and the Caribbean,” published in 2016, as an update of the original 2008 paper.

In practice, the trade relationship is characterized by a significant concentration in certain products and countries.

According to the European Union Institute for Securities Studies, 70% of the Latin American region’s exports to the Asian country are made up of five products -including oil-, and 90% of this comes from Brazil, Chile, Peru and Venezuela. This relationship has intensified in 2023 with the signing of important agreements with other countries in the area, including trade issues with Ecuador and Brazil, and key agreements with Argentina and Nicaragua.

As for Venezuela, during President Nicolás Maduro’s last tour of China, 31 cooperation agreements were signed in different areas. Relations between the two countries were upgraded to a Full Proof, Full Time Strategic Partnership. During President Nicolás Maduro’s last tour of China, 31 cooperation agreements were signed in different areas. The relations between the two countries were upgraded to an All-Weather and All-Time Strategic Partnership.

In this context, Venezuela’s decision to forge autonomous relations, in line with the Chinese proposal of non-interference and collaborative development, positions the South American nation as a  fundamental element  in Washington’s containment strategy against Beijing and other emerging powers that challenge the established unipolar order.

Such urgency translates into an escalation of the militarized approach, a constant in U.S. foreign policy towards the region, but now observed with greater frequency and manifested in interventions, pressures and coercion aimed at maintaining control over a territory vital to its geopolitical interests.

Source: Mision Verdad, translation Internationalist 360°