China rises in Latin America to a top trade partner

mcclatchy ^ | 7/8/09 | By Tyler Bridges,

[Flavius]

All but invisible in Latin America a decade ago, China now is building cars in Uruguay , donating a soccer stadium to Costa Rica and lending $10 billion to Brazil's biggest oil company.

It's supplanted the United States to become the biggest trading partner with Brazil , South America's biggest economy.

China has moved aggressively to fill a vacuum left by the United States in recent years, as the U.S. focused on wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and the global economic crisis sapped its economy.

" China is rising while the U.S. is declining in Latin America ," Riordan Roett , a professor of international relations at Johns Hopkins University , said by telephone while visiting Sao Paulo . " China is all over this region. They are following a state-driven policy to expand their peaceful presence."