Medellin, Colombia – Leaders from 11 Latin American countries will meet with President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio in Doral, Florida, on Saturday to discuss several U.S. interests, including combatting drug trafficking, immigration, and foreign (read Chinese) influence in the hemisphere.
Representing Chile at the “Shield of the Americas Summit” will be President-elect José Antonio Kast, who will assume office on March 11.
At home, Kast and the outgoing administration of Gabriel Boric are at odds over a recently announced undersea communications cable that would connect Chile with China, an infrastructure project the U.S. vehemently opposes.
On February 20, the Secretary of State announced the U.S. would impose visa restrictions on Chilean officials involved in the undersea cable deal, including Transport Minister Juan Carlos Muñoz and Undersecretary of Telecommunications Claudio Araya.
Kast abruptly ended presidential transition talks with Boric on Wednesday, claiming that his administration kept him in the dark about the cable project – allegations which Boric disputes, saying that Kast had been informed weeks prior.
Read more: Democratic backsliding or a blip?: Chile’s Kast withdraws from power transition talks
China is Chile’s top trading partner, constituting close to 40% of Chile’s total exports in 2024. At the same time, the U.S. is the second-largest investor in Chile, behind Canada.
As Trump turns up the dial on U.S. influence in the region, Chile’s tightrope balancing act between the two countries could become more perilous.
Mariano Machado, an Americas analyst at Verisk Maplecroft, a risk-management firm, told CNBC that “strategic infrastructure decisions will be treated as geopolitical alignment choices” by the Trump administration.
The Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a think tank dedicated to promoting U.S. prosperity globally, said that subsea cable talks at the Shield of the Americas Summit could include transparency and security agreements as well as the establishment of a “cyber incident reporting network … in an effort to track the quantity and location of Chinese intrusions into regional networks.”
Following the U.S. revocation of Chilean officials’ visas, China’s ambassador to Chile, Niu Qingdao, told Bio Bio Radio, “This project satisfies the needs of both parties and also benefits both sides. What the Chilean officials are doing, in our opinion, is very favorable both to Chile’s national interests and the friendship between China and Chile, and is also very beneficial for maintaining Chile’s leadership in the digital economy and connectivity.”
He added that the project obeys the laws of both countries and doesn’t harm “any third party [the United States], so they are not going to undermine regional security or the security of other countries.”
The fate of the China Mobile International cable, which would connect Valparaíso to Hong Kong, remains unknown.
Before boarding a plane to Miami on Thursday, Kast told reporters, “What we in Chile seek is to have the best relations with all countries (…) We want to honor and respect the trade relations we have with China and we also want to respect the relationship we have with the United States and with the rest of the world.”
Chile is currently working with Google to build an undersea cable that will stretch 14,000 kilometers to connect Chile with Australia via French Polynesia.
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