In Peru, the Trump Administration Sees the Limits of Its Anti-China Push

In Peru, the Trump Administration Sees the Limits of Its Anti-China Push - The New York Times

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Peru Shows the Limits of Washington’s Anti-China Push

As Secretary of State Marco Rubio travels this week to Peru, its growing economic ties to China have raised tensions with the U.S., but show no signs of reversing course.

Listen · 10:26 min

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!Huge blue cranes with the words “Cosco Shipping” loom over stacks of shipping containers stretching into the distance.

*The enormous new Chinese-operated cargo port at Chancay, Peru, is a source of tension with Washington, but Peruvians see it as economically vital.

Credit...

Sara Wayra for The New York Times*

By

Genevieve Glatsky

Photographs by

Sara Wayra

Genevieve Glatsky and Sara Wayra reported from Lima and Chancay Port.

Sept. 7, 2026, 5:00 a.m. ET

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Peru’s ambassador in Washington, Luis Miguel Castilla, received a stern phone call in 2015 from the State Department, after U.S. officials learned that a Chinese firm would finance a sprawling new Pacific Coast port project.

Why, they asked, was Peru handing Beijing a strategic foothold in South America?

Mr. Castilla’s answer was blunt: Western investors had already passed.

The port’s Peruvian private sector promoters “came to knock on doors here and in Europe, and no one opened the door,” Mr. Castilla said. “So, any space left behind is space that someone else takes.”

Today, the $1.3 billion Chinese-backed mega-port in Chancay, north of Lima, the capital, has become the most visible symbol of China’s expanding economic presence in Peru.

It is also a key reason the country, which Secretary of State Marco Rubio is planning to visit this week, has emerged as a testing ground for one of President Trump’s core objectives in Latin America: rolling back Beijing’s influence in the Western Hemisphere.

Image

*Workers remotely controlling and monitoring port operations in April at Chancay.

Credit...

Sara Wayra for The New York Times*

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