Latin America is not just turning right; it is turning angry, and Washington is cheering. From Santiago to Buenos Aires, voters are rejecting the centre, embracing a new, unapologetic right.
Salman Rafi Sheikh
To the right
In 2025, a series of elections across Latin America underscored a pronounced rightward shift in the region’s politics. In Chile’s December 14 presidential runoff, far‑right candidate José Antonio Kast won with about 58 % of the vote, defeating leftist Jeannette Jara and marking a dramatic conservative victory in a country long shaped by its democratic transition from dictatorship. Earlier on October 19, Bolivia’s general election delivered a historic result as centrist‑right Rodrigo Paz ended nearly two decades of leftist rule, securing the presidency in a contest that reflected broad right‑leaning support. In Argentina’s October 26 legislative elections, President Javier Milei’s libertarian party, La Libertad Avanza, made significant gains in both chambers of Congress, consolidating his political influence. And in Honduras’s November 30 general election, conservative National Party candidate Nasry Asfura has led the vote count in a tightly contested race expected to shift the country away from the progressive government of Xiomara Castro, with the final result still pending amid a recount. Together with sustained conservative leadership in countries like Ecuador, Paraguay, and El Salvador, these outcomes illustrate the growing momentum of right‑wing and centre‑right forces across the region.
For Washington, Latin America’s rightward shift offers opportunity, not permanence
Latin America and Washington’s National Security Strategy
The 2025 US National Security Strategy places Latin America — the “Western Hemisphere” — at the top of its foreign policy priorities precisely because it defines that region’s political alignment as a matter of US national security: the strategy says Washington wants “a Hemisphere whose governments cooperate with us against narco‑terrorists, cartels, and other transnational criminal organizations” and one that “remains free of hostile foreign incursion or ownership of key assets.” These are not abstract ambitions, but declarative goals meant to enforce what the document calls a “Trump Corollary” to the Monroe Doctrine, asserting US dominance in its “backyard” and aiming to prevent competitors — most notably China — from gaining influence. In this formulation, migration and transnational crime are not domestic social issues but structural threats: the NSS explicitly links hemispheric stability to preventing “mass migration to the United States,” making cooperation with regional governments instrumental to US border security and domestic political goals.
The recent electoral successes of right‑wing and centre‑right politicians in Latin America — from Chile’s José Antonio Kast to Argentina’s Javier Milei and Bolivia’s Rodrigo Paz — advance these strategic objectives not as happenstance but as functional alignments. Governments that share ideological affinity with Washington are more likely, in US strategic reasoning, to partner on issues defined as core US national interests: combating migration flows, cracking down on crime networks, and resisting Chinese economic penetration. The NSS’s emphasis on a cooperative hemisphere assumes that like‑minded leaders will be willing partners in “cooperat[ing]” against the very phenomena the strategy blames for domestic insecurity and economic disruption. In this sense, the political shift to the right in capitals from Santiago to Buenos Aires is not merely an electoral trend but a structural enabler of the US strategy’s priorities. These shifts will help reduce friction in bilateral cooperation, bolster regional alignment with US definitions of security challenges, and tighten Washington’s grip on economic and strategic levers in a region it now frames as indispensable to American prosperity and stability.
Convergence on China
The 2025 US NSS paints China not merely as a competitor but as a strategic encroacher in America’s backyard, warning that Beijing’s growing footprint could “undermine U.S. interests and influence in our own hemisphere” and diminish Washington’s ability to shape outcomes on core security issues. This fear of China has its roots in Beijing’s growing footprint. China has become Latin America’s largest trading partner, with bilateral trade exceeding US$500 billion in 2024, while massive investments in ports, logistics hubs, energy, and mining — from the COSCO‑developed Chancay port in Peru to lithium projects in Chile and Argentina — are embedding Beijing’s influence deep into the region’s economic arteries. Chinese banks have also outpaced Western lenders, offering governments credit lines and infrastructure deals that Washington cannot easily match. Far from benign, these projects give China leverage over key sectors and even dual-use capacities that could, in a worst-case scenario, shift the strategic balance against U.S. interests.
The effect is stark: Latin America is slipping from exclusive US influence, and Beijing’s economic entrenchment is giving governments newfound autonomy to defy Washington’s preferences. Commodities like soy, copper, and lithium make China indispensable to national export strategies, giving it outsized sway over domestic policy and foreign alignments. The 2025 NSS responds not with diplomacy alone but with an implicit warning: unless the US secures allied governments and channels economic incentives strategically, China could quietly supplant Washington as the hemisphere’s dominant external actor, undermining decades of assumed supremacy. The message is clear: the stakes are no longer abstract: in Latin America, economic ties are political power, and China is cashing the checks that were once written by Washington.
A Strategic Opening, Not a Strategic Victory
For Washington, Latin America’s rightward shift offers opportunity, not permanence. The ideological convergence between the Trump administration’s 2025 NSS and the region’s new political leadership may slow China’s advance, but it cannot erase it. Beijing’s influence is not electoral or ideological; it is structural. It is embedded in ports, supply chains, commodity markets, and long-term financing arrangements that do not disappear with a change of government. Infrastructure outlives presidents.
The fragility of Washington’s position lies in political volatility on both ends. Trump’s hemispheric assertiveness is unlikely to enjoy automatic continuity under a future US administration, just as today’s ascendant Latin American right remains electorally vulnerable. Economic downturns or governance failures could quickly restore leftist or nationalist governments that see Chinese capital not as a threat but as strategic leverage against US pressure. Alignment based on ideological affinity is therefore inherently reversible. This asymmetry exposes the core limitation of US srategy. Washington is betting on political convergence; Beijing has secured economic indispensability. As long as Latin America’s growth remains commodity-driven and China remains the dominant buyer and financier, US influence can be contested but not restored to exclusivity. The rightward turn may help Washington regain ground, but it does not reset the board. Latin America is no longer a backyard; it is a contested arena, and China is already entrenched.
Salman Rafi Sheikh, research analyst of International Relations and Pakistan’s foreign and domestic affairs
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