China using ‘vaccine diplomacy’ to push telecom firm in Latin America, SouthCom warns
Southern Command chief Adm. Craig Faller warned Congress that China is using “mask and vaccine diplomacy” to undercut U.S. influence in Latin America by offering coronavirus support tied to Chinese telecommunications investments.
China is using “mask and vaccine diplomacy” to undercut U.S. influence in Latin America by offering coronavirus pandemic
support tied to a push for Chinese telecommunications investments in the region, Southern Command chief Adm. Craig Faller warned Congress on Tuesday.
Southern Command estimates that China has so far provided more than $120 million in COVID relief and supplies to Latin America.
China is now moving into a new phase, leveraging its vaccine supply to persuade countries where the United States has provided military and diplomatic support to allow Chinese stateowned telecommunica
tions firm Huawei into their markets, Faller said at a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing.
“We have seen China move in with a particularly heavy-handed mask and vaccine diplomacy,” Faller told the lawmakers. “They are using the vaccines to leverage deals for their IT, for their 5G.”
Brazil, which had previously opposed Huawei entering its market, in January agreed to allow the Chinese firm to bid on building a 5G network there. The United States sees Brazil as a critical partner in its strategy on the Venezuelan crisis.
The United States has designated Huawei as a threat to U.S. national security and has blocked firms from using Huawei equipment to prevent China from exploiting U.S. telecommunications networks.
“It’s well known what a deal with Huawei does to your sovereignty,” Faller said. “It provides a direct path to China.”
If Huawei increases control of telecommunications in key Latin American
countries it could hamper U.S. ability to securely operate in that region.
“Where China has stepped ahead of us is vaccine delivery,” Faller told reporters at the Pentagon after his congressional testimony. “That’s in the tens of millions, in numbers of vaccines they have provided.”
The United States will not provide vaccines to other countries until all Americans have access, however it has provided more than $230 million in protective equipment for the pandemic to the region, Faller said.
“Once we’ve taken care of the United States, [let’s] be first with a concerted plan to take care of our neighborhood,” Faller told Congress. “The next phase is going to be in vaccines and long-term recovery. We’ve got to be as aggressive and forward leaning in that phase, I would say particularly in this hemisphere, because the proximity here matters to the security of the United States.”
The pandemic has created a greater opportunity for China as Latin America faces the hardest economic situation it has seen in decades. The International Monetary Fund estimates most Latin American economies have shrunk at least 7.4 percent and will be the region in the world that takes the longest to recover.
Faller said he saw some of the impact firsthand in September during a trip to Honduras, El Salvador, Costa Rica and Guatemala.
As he met with military counterparts there, he was struck by the compounding impact the pandemic has had on countries already hit by two devastating hurricanes in 2020 and a surge in transnational crime.
“The hollow look in the eyes of our partners — they are struggling to fill their gas tanks and find food for their security forces because of the stress the pandemic and the violence has placed,” Faller said. “And this creates real opportunities for our competitors who are more than willing to step into that violent sauce and take advantage of it for their own interests.”
As the Biden administration reviews Cuba policy, a new Florida poll finds that a majority of Cuban-American voters do not support a return to Obama-era engagement with the communist island.
Sixty-six percent of 400 Cuban Americans, all of whom voted in the 2020 election, said they oppose normalizing relations between the U.S. and Cuba, according to a Bendixen & Amandi International poll released Tuesday.
The results of the bilingual survey show former President Donald Trump’s support among Cuban Americans is enduring and that many in the community still back his hardline policies against the Cuban government, even those deemed as hurting Cuban families. Fifty-six percent said they somewhat or strongly oppose easing travel between the two countries. About 35% said they supported it, either somewhat or strongly.
The results of the poll reaffirm what other recent surveys have suggested: That rather than becoming more open to the idea of loosening U.S. restrictions with Cuba, Cuban Amerof icans have increasingly dug in to keeping the island closed off, said Fernand Amandi, the president of Bendixen & Amandi International, which has been tracking the Cuban community for over 45 years.
“What we’re seeing is a new back-to-the-future, retro-style to some of these issues, when it was believed that the Cuban community was going through a shift in perceptions during the Obama years,” said Amandi. “These results suggest that if there’s any change, it’s toward the hardline.”
The survey was conducted by telephone from March 8 to March 11 in English and Spanish and had a margin of error of plus or minus 4.9 percentage points. Most of those polled were born in Cuba (75%). About 46% said they were conservative, 34% said they are moderates and 15% said they identified as liberal.
The results show Biden continues to trail Trump in support among Cubans in Florida. Forty-five percent said they view the president very or somewhat favorably, while 62% said the same about Trump. Fifty-one percent say they view Biden as somewhat or very unfavorably. Thirtysix percent said the same
Trump.
And on the legitimacy of the 2020 elections, 40% of Cuban Americans in Florida said they do not accept the legitimacy of the election that Biden won. Fiftyfour percent said they accepted the election results as legitimate.
Giancarlo Sopo, a Republican communications strategist who helped lead the Trump campaign’s messaging on Hispanics, said the lingering attitudes that favor Trump are a trend on the gains that Republicans made with Latinos in working-class communities throughout Miami-Dade County.
“Democrats are alienating blue-collar and middle-class Latinos as their party and cultural institutions become more ‘woke’ and progressive,” said Sopo. “Cuban Americans, who had been trending Democratic for years, are no exception to this trend.”
The poll shows a change in the way Cuban Americans view the embargo on the island since the Obama years, with 66% saying they think the embargo should continue, a trend previously appearing in past polls conducted by the Florida International University. About 47% said the embargo should not continue.
Sixty-nine percent were in favor of keeping Cuba in the U.S. list of countries that sponsor terrorism, a decision taken by the Trump administration just days before leaving office and currently under review by the Biden team.
When it comes to humanitarian policies affecting Cuban American families, the community is divided. About 50% said they were somewhat or strongly opposed to ending the Cuban Family Reunification Parole Program, while 43% said they were strongly or somewhat in favor of ending it.
And 50% said they strongly or somewhat supported reinstating the so-called “wet foot, dry foot” policy, which allowed Cuban migrants who reached the U.S. to stay and seek legal permanent resident status. Obama ended the 22-year policy in 2017 before leaving office. About 42% said they somewhat or strongly opposed it.
This month, Congress will vote on at least two immigration bills: the Dream and Promise Act and the Farm Workforce Modernization Act. These bills represent an opportunity to help our families, communities and economy by letting millions of people vital to our country the ability to earn citizenship.
As COVID-19 raged, people across America saw the vital role that immigrants played in helping our communities survive. According to a 2020 statistic by the Center for American Progress, in Florida, there are 348,000 undocumented essential workers keeping our state healthy and safe and more than 32,000 DREAMers, like me, who came to this country as children but have no way of earning legal status without congressional action.
Voters across the country have made clear that providing a pathway to citizenship is the right policy solution to keep families like mine together while growing our economy.
I urge Congressman Carlos Gimenez to put such undocumented immigrants on a path to citizenship.
– Annalleli Gallegos,
Florida City