As China Courts the Caribbean, Some See Loss of US Soft Power

China is pumping billions into the Caribbean — building roads, wiring digital networks, providing surveillance equipment and deepening ties with governments from Guyana to Grenada. At first glance, the region’s struggling economies appear to be getting long-overdue investment.

But critics argue the real goal is not development — it’s influence.

At a summit in Beijing this spring, China announced a $9 billion yuan-denominated credit line for Latin America and the Caribbean. The funding was framed as support for “peace, development, and security.” Caribbean leaders praised the initiative. Beijing promised jobs, infrastructure and capital.

Behind the soft-power rollout, however, some U.S. officials and analysts see a strategic challenge. In a Council on Foreign Relations report titled “The Caribbean’s Growing Role in China’s Grand Strategy,” Enrique Millán-Mejía, a fellow at the Atlantic Council, wrote that China’s growing presence “poses a direct challenge to U.S. dominance in the region.” He warned that failure to respond could result in “further erosion of soft power in its traditional sphere of influence.”

That direct challenge has come under attack in several instances as the U.S. pushes back against Beijing. In late 2020, Chinese tech giant Huawei was banned from upgrading its telecommunications networks in the Dominican Republic amid a global 5G push, but that restriction was lifted about three months later.

According to the Council on Foreign Relations, trade between China and Latin America and the Caribbean reached a record $518 billion in 2024. More than 20 countries in the region have joined China’s Belt and Road Initiative, giving Beijing deep economic and political ties across the hemisphere.

While the United States has historically viewed the Caribbean as a strategic backyard, its decades-long influence has come under scrutiny. Tamanisha John, writing for the Council on Hemispheric Affairs, argued that U.S. power in the region has long been predicated on maintaining what she called “a reactionary axis” of dependency.

“U.S. influence in the Caribbean region has historically centered around controlling the ‘backwardness’ and ‘unstableness’ of its people, in order to keep U.S. geostrategic and geopolitical interests intact,” John wrote.

John, a Caribbean political economy scholar, contends that China’s presence is often framed as a threat in order to distract from deeper issues of dependency. “U.S. fear mongering about China in the Caribbean is propaganda,” she wrote. “It only serves to prevent people from questioning why Caribbean states are dependent and why there is rampant foreignization of Caribbean economies.”

China’s strategy in the region has been consistent: provide low-interest loans, build infrastructure and secure economic and diplomatic footholds. Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei already supports core digital infrastructure in countries such as Trinidad and Tobago. China has also supplied police gear, surveillance technology and support for space cooperation.

John noted that while Chinese labor practices — particularly importing its own workforce for projects — have drawn criticism, such methods are not unique. “Countries such as the United States, Canada, and various European powers have long employed similar strategies,” she wrote.

She also challenged the narrative of “debt trap diplomacy,” often leveled at China by U.S. officials. “Even if China ceased to exist in the Caribbean region, the region would still be one of the most indebted within the Western capitalist system,” John wrote. She added that the focus on Chinese debt deflects attention from the financial burdens created by Western institutions and historic structural adjustment policies.

According to John, Caribbean states routinely sign investment agreements through memorandums of understanding and letters of agreement with “minimal, to no input from Caribbean citizens.” These deals, she wrote, often prioritize foreign capital over local economic development.

“Caribbean neoliberal states have a disregard for the rights of their citizens,” John wrote. “They favor almost exclusively Western foreign corporations and wealthy individuals.”

She argued that the current dynamic — in which Caribbean elites benefit from foreign investment while local communities are excluded — reinforces a pattern of neocolonialism. “Those concerned with the persistence of Caribbean dependency should critically engage with its structural causes,” she concluded, “and actively challenge Western propaganda regardless of the source from which it emanates.”

The Caribbean continues to find itself between two global powers offering competing visions of partnership.