China’s trade with some South American nations is accelerating after the opening of Peru’s Chancay port, underscoring Beijing's push to secure resources and bolster industrial supply chains under the Belt and Road Initiative, analysts said.
The surge in two-way trade builds on years of Chinese investment and comes as the United States seeks to roll back Beijing’s influence in the region under a strategy US President Donald Trump has called the “Donroe” doctrine – invoking a 19th-century policy that warned European powers against meddling in the newly independent nations of the Americas.
Trump repeatedly vowed to “take back” control of the strategic Panama Canal before a court in the Central American nation ruled against a subsidiary of Hong Kong’s CK Hutchison last week, sparking ire from Beijing. Washington also abducted then-Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro in early January, securing influence over the country’s oil sector.
China’s trade with Peru rose 17.8 per cent last year to US$50.96 billion, according to data from Beijing’s General Administration of Customs. That growth rate was the fastest pace in four years and a record in value terms.
Minerals drove most of the expansion. Chinese imports of ore, slag and ash from Peru jumped 20.7 per cent in value to over US$30 billion, making the South American nation its second-largest supplier after Australia. These products accounted for 87 per cent of China’s total imports from the country.
China’s trade with Chile also reached a record US$66.9 billion, up 8.5 per cent year on year, customs data showed, while merchandise flows with Ecuador surged 24 per cent to US$17.3 billion.
“The recent, dramatic rise in imports of these goods should come as no surprise,” said Charles Austin Jordan, a senior research analyst with Rhodium Group’s China Projects team.
He added that Latin America’s mineral wealth and technical expertise had become central to Beijing’s overseas investment strategy, as securing raw materials and sustaining manufacturing expansion remain core goals of the Belt and Road Initiative.
“The Chancay port project perfectly encapsulates these priorities,” he said.
The US$3.5 billion project, mainly financed by Chinese investors, opened in late 2024, sharply cutting shipping times between South America and China.
“I expect to see China’s drive to secure resource supply chains intensify and for the Belt and Road Initiative to continue to play a key part in that, especially considering some of the successes they’ve had so far,” Jordan said.
Liang Yan, an economics professor at Willamette University, said projects such as Chancay port would directly advance Beijing’s strategic interests by lowering trade frictions and securing industrial inputs. Nearly 75 per cent of China’s copper consumption depends on imports, she added.
“China’s EVs [electric vehicles], solar panels and wind turbines are instrumental for the energy transition and energy security in Latin America.”
In terms of 20-foot equivalent units (TEU) – a standard unit for freight container volume – Chancay port handled more than 270,000, according to Communist Party mouthpiece the People’s Daily. The party paper also said about 1.36 million tonnes of bulk cargo passed through the port in the first three quarters of 2025.
Compared to previous routes, a new direct connection from the Peruvian port to Shanghai has cut shipping times to about 23 days and reduced logistics costs by more than 20 per cent.
Chancay port has an annual handling capacity of about 1 million TEU, with the potential to reach 1.5 million. By comparison, Shanghai – the world’s busiest container port – handled more than 55 million TEU in 2025.
In Latin America, Brazil’s Port of Santos processes about 4.4 million TEU annually, while Panama’s Balboa port handles roughly 2.5 million. -- SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST
