WASHINGTON\u00a0\u2014\u00a0President Trump has invited Latin American leaders to take part in a summit in Florida next month, gathering the officials at a moment when the administration is spotlighting what it sees as concerning Chinese influence in the region.<\/p>\n
Plans for the March 7 summit were confirmed on Thursday by a White House official who was not authorized to comment publicly about the yet-to-be formally announced gathering of leaders. It will also come just weeks before Trump is expected to travel to Beijing for talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping.<\/p>\n
The Trump administration has made it a priority to assert dominance over the Western Hemisphere, where China has long built influence through massive loans and expansive trade.<\/p>\n
Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, this week convened a gathering in Washington of defense chiefs and senior military officials from 34 Western Hemisphere countries. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, in an address to the officials, said the Trump administration aimed to \u201cachieve a permanent peace in this hemisphere.\u201d<\/p>\n
The U.S. administration last month launched an audacious military operation to oust Venezuelan leader Nicol\u00e1s Maduro and whisk him and his wife to New York to face federal drug conspiracy charges.<\/p>\n
Trump has since rationalized the ouster and his subsequent push for the U.S. to maintain oversight of Venezuela\u2019s oil industry by pointing to concerns about Chinese and Russian influence on the South American country.<\/p>\n
\u201cOne thing I think everyone has to know is that if we didn\u2019t do this, China or Russia would have done it,\u201d Trump told oil industry officials at a White House meeting just days after Maduro\u2019s capture.<\/p>\n
China is the largest purchaser of Venezuelan oil, though the purchases only account for a small fraction of Beijing\u2019s overall seaborne imports.<\/p>\n
Trump has also threatened to seize control of the Panama Canal, saying the waterway was \u201cvital to our country\u201d and falsely claiming, \u201cit\u2019s being operated by China.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Panama Canal \u2014 a crucial trade passage that links the Atlantic and Pacific \u2013 was built by the U.S. in the early 20th century. It was then operated by the U.S. for decades before Washington handed full control of the canal to Panama in 1999. Panama\u2019s high court recently annulled Hong Kong-based CK Hutchison\u2019s contract to operate two ports on the canal. <\/p>\n
Trump thrust Panama into the spotlight even before winning a second term in the White House, suggesting the U.S. consider retaking control of the canal and accusing Panama of ceding influence to China.<\/p>\n
The Trump administration this week also expressed concern over China\u2019s control over critical infrastructure in Peru after a Peruvian court ruling restricted a local regulator\u2019s oversight of Chinese-built deepwater port Chancay.<\/p>\n
The U.S. State Department\u2019s Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs said on social media on Wednesday that it was concerned that \u201cPeru could be powerless to oversee Chancay, one of its largest ports, which is under the jurisdiction of predatory Chinese owners.\u201d<\/p>\n
The department said: \u201cWe support Peru\u2019s sovereign right to oversee critical infrastructure in its own territory. Let this be a cautionary tale for the region and the world: cheap Chinese money costs sovereignty.\u201d <\/p>\n
Madhani writes for the Associated Press. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WASHINGTON\u00a0\u2014\u00a0President Trump has invited Latin American leaders to take part in a summit in Florida next month, gathering…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":153345,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[1167,14585,73899,1896,3976,28,30,29,73901,73897,9621,31302,2684,4494,6413,1456,73898,73900],"class_list":["post-153344","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-administration","tag-china","tag-chinese-influence","tag-concern","tag-control","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news","tag-latin-american-leader","tag-panama-canal","tag-peru","tag-summit","tag-trump","tag-u-s","tag-washington","tag-week","tag-western-hemisphere","tag-white-house-official"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153344","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=153344"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153344\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/153345"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=153344"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=153344"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=153344"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}