SINCE ITS founding by landowners in 1866, the Rural Society of Argentina—motto, “To Cultivate the Soil is to Serve the Nation”—has been a potent ally for governments of the right and a daunting foe for the left. The society’s campus in Buenos Aires, home to a big annual agricultural fair, dominates a city block in the heart of the capital. Hosting The Telegram for a chat about geopolitics, society officers deplore decades of economic mismanagement by populist left-leaning governments, which caused inflation to soar and the Argentine currency to sink. On the way out, they show him some of the society’s historic treasures, including a carved armchair used by the late Pope John Paul II.

Yet when asked about the People’s Republic of China, they purr. “China is a bottomless barrel. Whatever you can offer, they will take,” says Nicolás Pino, the society’s president. He describes rising exports to China of Argentine soyabeans, frozen beef, semen from prize bulls and other farm goods worth billions of dollars. Latin American farming barons are often selling to state-owned agencies, guided by orders to enhance Chinese food security and self-reliance handed down by Communist Party leaders. If the Rural Society has qualms, they involve not the political leanings of Chinese officials, but their hard-nosed approach to commerce. When selling to Europeans, once the price and quality of exports have been established “the trade flows,” says Mr Pino. In contrast, Chinese importers decided not long ago that they were paying too much for beef and unilaterally cut the price by more than two-thirds, “and not only for future sales, but for meat that was already at sea”. Alas, lower prices created new perils for Argentina, Brazil and other Latin American countries that sell millions of tons of meat to China each year. In the final days of 2024, Chinese regulators announced a probe into imported beef prices at the demand of hard-pressed domestic producers.

Still, cattle barons and other conservative interests call China an invaluable partner. In interviews with politicians, industry bosses and diplomats from across Latin America, there is praise for China’s business-friendly “pragmatism”. That was not always a given. When China first showed a serious interest in Latin America, a generation ago, it caused alarm in Washington and other Western capitals by channelling some of its largest investments and loans to left-wing, anti-American regimes, notably in Venezuela. In the years since prominent conservatives have continued to worry about enemies of the West colluding in the Southern hemisphere. In late 2023 Marco Rubio, a Republican senator from Florida, demanded that President Joe Biden impose sanctions on a former left-wing Argentine president, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner. Noting Ms Kirchner’s conviction for graft, Mr Rubio accused her of enabling “malign actors like China and Iran to deepen their corrupt influence in a critical US ally, Argentina”. He pointed in particular to “nebulous agreements for public works contracts that compromise both the United States’ and Argentina’s security.” In particular, Mr Rubio pointed to a satellite-tracking radar station built by China in a remote Argentine desert, operated by a branch of the People’s Liberation Army.

Mr Rubio, a flinty Cuban-American conservative, will soon be making his case in person to Latin American leaders, for he is President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for secretary of state. He has friends across the region, including in Argentina, whose libertarian president, Javier Milei, campaigned for office in 2023 by threatening to break relations with China’s government, saying: “I don’t make pacts with communists”.

Mr Milei has changed his tune as president, declaring the Chinese “a very interesting partner; they don’t ask for anything, except that they should not be bothered”. Soon after his victory Chinese envoys did raise Mr Milei’s campaign rhetoric, say well-informed Argentines. But they expressed understanding about his disastrous inheritance, involving vast foreign debts and a wrecked domestic economy, and declared that China would not be “an obstacle to Argentina’s recovery”. In June 2024 China extended a currency swap equivalent to billions of dollars for two more years, giving Argentine’s foreign reserves some breathing room.

For China, friends come and go, interests are enduring

Local bigwigs are unsurprised, noting that China’s investments increased after a pro-business, American-educated centrist, Mauricio Macri, defeated Mrs Kirchner to become Argentine president from 2015 to 2019. China’s interests in Latin America are unquestionably strategic, says Carlos Ruckauf, a former Argentine vice-president and foreign minister. He points to Chancay, a Chinese built and controlled port in Peru, which will be the largest and deepest on South America’s Pacific coast. He acknowledges warm Chinese ties with the Kirchners, who lavished praise on China’s governance. But “with China, ideology is clearly in second place,” he says. “We are lithium, copper and food for them.” The challenge for the continent is to cut business deals with China that do not cross America’s red lines, he suggests. Allowing Chinese firms into telecommunications networks “may be a red line”. Chinese ambitions to develop a port near Antarctica were “appalling” to America, he says. China’s space-peering radar station is a “very hard” problem because it is governed by a bilateral treaty.

Bigwigs from several Latin American countries have the same message for the Trump team. To compete with China, America must offer alternatives. In Chile, the Biden administration scored a win when a Chinese bid to build a submarine internet cable from Chile to Asia was beaten by a Western consortium including Google. The first Trump presidency saw many threats and lectures directed at southern neighbours. To curb China’s influence, “The Art of the Deal” would be a better guide.