From Monroe to “Donroe”: America’s Fight to Push China Out of Its Own Backyard Hegemonic Finance, Infrastructure Feedback, and the Contest for the Western Hemisphere, 2000–2026

Abstract

Between 2000 and 2024, China’s share of Latin American merchandise exports increased from under 2 percent to approximately 14 percent, while total China–Latin America trade expanded from US$14 billion to US$518 billion (UN Comtrade, 2024). The United States maintains roughly 45 percent of regional exports primarily because Mexico anchors the aggregate (CRS IF12614, 2024). China has been South America’s largest trading partner since 2010, a position secured through US$120 billion in policy-bank lending between 2005 and 2023 (China–Latin America Finance Database, 2024) and US$302 billion in total official-sector finance (AidData, 2023). This displacement can be explained by a modified hegemonic stability framework, augmented by a financing-for-infrastructure feedback loop: commodity-collateralized loans disbursed rapidly built export infrastructure oriented toward Chinese demand, deepening trade dependence and generating collateral for further credit, thereby by passing IMF conditionality. Since late 2024, the United States has mobilized more than US$63 billion in financial, energy, and security instruments—including a US$20 billion Treasury stabilization swap with Argentina (U.S. Treasury, 2025), forced divestiture of Chinese port concessions in Panama, a US$2 billion Venezuelan crude redirection agreement following the January 2026 intervention, and US$3.7 billion in fighter-aircraft transfers displacing Chinese and Russian suppliers (SIPRI, 2026)—to reverse this trajectory. The probability of success is modeled as a function of Chinese counter-financing velocity.