LIMA, Peru: If things had gone differently last week, US President Joe Biden could have arrived at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum in Peru on Thursday projecting confidence and pledging his successor’s cooperation with eager Latin American partners. No longer.
Just as in 2016, the last time that Peru’s capital Lima hosted APEC, Donald Trump’s election victory has pulled the rug out from under a lame-duck Democrat at the high-profile summit attended by over a dozen world leaders.
The renewed prospect of Trump’s “America First” doctrine hampers Biden’s ability to reinforce the United States’ profile on his first presidential trip to South America, experts say, leaving China and its leader, Xi Jinping, to grab the limelight in America’s proverbial backyard.
President Xi’s first order of business in Peru is inaugurating a $1.3 billion megaport that will put China’s regional influence on stark display. Total investment is expected to top $3.5 billion over the next decade.
“This isn’t the way the US had hoped to participate in the summit,” said Margaret Myers, the director of the China and Latin America program at the Inter-American Dialogue, a Washington policy group. “All eyes are going to be on the port, what Xi says about it and how he articulates relations across the Pacific.”
With the US seemingly headed back toward isolationism under Trump, “China will be seen as the alternative,” Myers added.
Sitting 60 kilometers (37 miles) northeast of Lima, the Chancay megaport — once a serene fishing village — is perhaps the clearest sign of Latin America’s reorientation. The Chinese shipping and logistics giant Cosco holds a 60 percent stake in the project it developed with Peruvian partner, Volcan.
“With this port, we’re looking at the entire Pacific coast, from the United States and Canada all the way to Chile,” Peruvian Foreign Minister Elmer Schialer told The Associated Press in his office on Monday. “The shipping business is being transformed.”
Peruvian Economy Minister José Arista said in June during a visit to China that the country’s neighbors — Brazil, Colombia, Chile — are “making constant trips to and from to see how they can modify their supply chain to use this port,” which will cut shipping time to Beijing by 10 days.
China’s trade with the region ballooned 35-fold from 2000 to 2022, reaching nearly $500 billion, according to data from the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean. Most of the region’s exports came from South America and were concentrated in five products: soybeans, copper and iron ore, oil and copper cathodes.
At the same time, China’s diplomatic engagement in the region has become more effective, with Xi visiting 11 Latin American countries since becoming president, according to Xinhua, China’s main state news agency. Brazil, host of the G20 summit, and Peru will bestow the rare honor of a full state visit to Xi this month, but not to Biden.
The misguided notion that Latin America must choose between its two largest trading partners is “a strategic defeat” for the US, said Eric Farnsworth, vice president at the Washington-based Council of the Americas.
“The idea that China is somehow a better partner is increasingly being heard around the region and I think Xi wants to solidify that and amplify that,” Farnsworth said.
Roughly a decade after China poured billions of dollars into building power plants, roads, airports and other infrastructure that saddled some developing countries with unserviceable debt, few expect Beijing to direct more massive loans to Latin America through its Belt and Road Initiative. But deeper cooperation on other infrastructure is possible, particularly renewable energy and telecommunications, said the Boston University Bulletin.
The US has appealed to Latin American governments to reject telecoms investment, particularly opposing Huawei, the Chinese tech giant that it argues could open the door to Chinese government spying. Similarly, US officials have raised concerns over the Chancay port’s possible dual-use by Beijing’s navy in the Pacific — a prospect dismissed by Chinese officials.
China “is working to exploit insecurity in our hemisphere,” said US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin at the Southern Command headquarters in Florida this week, adding that the Asian giant is leveraging the need for investment in the Americas to advance its “malign agenda.”
Despite its objections to Chinese influence, the US hasn’t shown the ability or willingness to build infrastructure like Chancay’s megaport, experts note.
Even when the US government has worked to ensure competitive bidding in Latin American massive public works projects, American companies have refrained from participating, said Benjamin Gedan, director of the Wilson Center’s Latin America Program.
A Kamala Harris administration wouldn’t have changed that, but a Democratic victory would have enabled Biden to speak in Lima with authority about US collaboration to come, such as building regional supply chains, Gedan said.
In sharp contrast to Biden’s alliance-building approach, Trump has vowed to protect American interests and promised more of the same unilateralist action the world saw in his first term when he staked out a combative stance against foreign competitors and deepened the US trade war with China.
In 2022, Biden launched the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework to help integrate the economies of the region and enable the US to counterbalance China. But last year, on the campaign trail, Trump said he would kill the trade pact if he were to win the 2024 election and return to the White House — in the same way, he pulled the US from the Trans-Pacific Partnership immediately after taking office in 2017.
In the years since, US clout in South America has diminished while China’s has grown, said Farnsworth, recalling how the last time Lima hosted APEC in 2016, the shock of Trump’s victory sucked the energy out of then-President Barack Obama’s delegation.
Peru’s top diplomat insists that the US hasn’t ceded its dominant voice guiding discussions about trade at gatherings such as APEC — and doubted that it will, even under Trump.
“I’m not sure that Trump will go against these types of multilateral contexts just because he is worried about the American people,” Schialer said. “He knows that the US is too important for the world. We have to sit down and have a nice dialogue and see how we can face these challenges together.”
Biden will hold talks Saturday with Xi on the sidelines of APEC, according to the US president’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan. The White House has been working for months to arrange a final meeting between Xi and Biden before the Democrat leaves office in January.
Meantime, in the wake of Trump’s win and China’s port opening in Peru, analysts expect the hard-nosed competition between the US and China to overshadow APEC.
“The Chinese love the idea of outmaneuvering the US in its near-abroad,” Gedan said. “Xi will luxuriate in this dynamic of being able to arrive with a big delegation, (...) to inaugurate this transformational port and suck all the air out of the room when his American counterpart is very weak politically. That is significant to China.”
A diminished Biden heads to APEC summit in Peru, overshadowed by China’s Xi
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A diminished Biden heads to APEC summit in Peru, overshadowed by China’s Xi
- With the US seemingly headed back toward isolationism under Trump, “China will be seen as the alternative,” says analyst
- President Xi’s first order of business in Peru is inaugurating a $1.3 billion megaport that will put China’s regional influence on stark display
Russia open to any Ukraine peace talks if Trump starts them, envoy says
“But if he starts or suggests something to start the political process, it’s welcome“
GENEVA: Russia is open to negotiations on an end to the Ukraine war if initiated by US President-elect Donald Trump, but any talks need to be based on the realities of Russian advances, Moscow’s ambassador to the UN in Geneva told reporters on Thursday.
Trump has repeatedly criticized the scale of Western aid to Kyiv and has promised to end the conflict swiftly, without explaining how. His victory in the Nov. 5 presidential election has spurred concerns in Kyiv and other European capitals about the degree of future US commitment to helping Ukraine.
“Trump promised to settle the Ukrainian crisis overnight. OK, let him try. But we are realistic people of course we understand that this will never happen,” said Gennady Gatilov, Russia’s ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva.
“But if he starts or suggests something to start the political process, it’s welcome.”
He added that any such negotiations needed to be based on what he called the “realities on the ground,” describing Ukraine as being on the back foot in the more-than-two-year conflict. Russian forces are advancing at the fastest pace in at least a year in Ukraine and now control about one-fifth of the country.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has repeatedly said peace cannot be established until all Russian forces are expelled and all territory captured by Moscow, including Crimea, is returned. The “victory plan” he outlined last month maintained that provision, as well as an invitation for Ukraine to join NATO, long denounced by Russia.
Zelensky told European leaders in Budapest last week that concessions to Russia would be “unacceptable for Ukraine and suicidal for all Europe.”
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 triggered the biggest confrontation between Moscow and the West since the depths of the Cold War, with President Joe Biden driving efforts to isolate Russia.
Gatilov indicated Trump’s election represented a new possibility for dialogue with the United States, but was doubtful about a broader reset of relations, echoing earlier caution voiced by the Kremlin.
“The US political elite regardless of domestic political shifts, (Washington) consistently pursues a stance of containing Moscow and this orientation is deeply-rooted unfortunately and the change of administration does little to alter it,” he said.
“The only shift (that) might be possible is dialogue between our countries, something that has been lacking during the last several years,” he added.
Thousands of police officers but few visiting fans for France-Israel match after Amsterdam violence
- Some 4,000 police officers and security staff will be deployed around the Stade de France, with another 1,500 police on public transport
- Paris authorities on high alert following the violence in Amsterdam surrounding a match between Ajax and Maccabi Tel Aviv
PARIS: A heavy police presence but few visiting fans are expected when France hosts Israel in Nations League soccer on Thursday, a week after violence erupted in Amsterdam in connection with an Israeli club team’s visit.
French police chief Laurent Nuñez said 4,000 police officers and security staff will be deployed around the Stade de France, with another 1,500 police on public transport.
Paris authorities are on high alert following the violence in Amsterdam before and after a Europa League match between Ajax and Maccabi Tel Aviv. Dutch authorities say fans from both sides were involved in the unrest. The assaults on Maccabi fans sparked outrage and were widely condemned as antisemitic.
“What we learned from Amsterdam is that we need to be present in the public space including far away from the stadium,” and in public transports before and after the match, Nuñez said Thursday on French news broadcaster France Info.
Three months after hosting the Olympic closing ceremony, the atmosphere has gone from festive to fearful and the national stadium was expected to be three-quarters empty for the match. French President Emmanuel Macron and French Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau will be present. Former presidents Francois Hollande and Nicolas Sarkozy are also to attend.
Only 20,000 of 80,000 tickets have been sold with around 150 Israel supporters reportedly attending, escorted by police.
“We’ve tried to prepare for this match as normally as possible. But obviously none of us within the team can be insensitive to such a heavy context,” France coach Didier Deschamps said Wednesday. “It impacts the amount of supporters present tomorrow and everything that goes with it.”
The away match against Israel on Oct. 10 — which France won 4-1 — was played in Budapest, Hungary.
“These are situations the players are not accustomed to,” Deschamps said. “But we have to adapt.”
The low number of visiting fans comes after Israel’s National Security Council warned citizens abroad to avoid sports and cultural events, specifically the match in Paris.
Retailleau told French news channel TF1 on Tuesday that no specific threats were identified but “zero risk does not exist.”
Therefore, he said, exceptional measures are in place “before the match, during the match and after the match.”
The elite tactical unit of the French National Police, known as RAID, will be in the stadium and some police will be in plain clothes mingling with fans. There will also be heavy surveillance within Paris, including at Jewish places of worship and schools.
“It is out of the question that we take the risk of seeing a repeat of the dramatic events, of the manhunt, that we saw in Amsterdam,” Retailleau said, adding that postponing or moving the game elsewhere was ruled out.
“France does not submit, and the France-Israel match will take place where it’s supposed to,” he said.
In Amsterdam, a number of Maccabi fans attacked a cab and chanted anti-Arab slogans while some men carried out “hit and run” attacks on people they thought were Jews, according to city Mayor Femke Halsema.
After the match, parts of a large group of Maccabi supporters armed with sticks ran around “destroying things,” a 12-page report on the violence issued by Amsterdam authorities said.
There were also “rioters, moving in small groups, by foot, scooter or car, quickly attacking Maccabi fans before disappearing,” it said.
Protests erupted in Paris on Wednesday night against a controversial gala organized by far-right figures in support of Israel.
The game in Saint-Denis, the suburb north of Paris, is scheduled to kick off at 8:45 p.m. local time (1945 GMT).
A pro-Palestinian demonstration is organized on a Saint-Denis plaza at 6 p.m. local time to protest against the match.
Nine years ago, Stade de France was one of several locations during the Nov. 13 terror attacks in which 130 people died. France was playing Germany that night when two explosions happened outside the stadium.
Deschamps, Germany coach Joachim Löw and all of the players stayed together in the locker rooms for hours until it was safe to leave.
“It’s a sad date for us given what happened in 2015,” Deschamps said.
Dutch reflect on Amsterdam violence one week on
- The attacks have put Amsterdam, famous for its tolerance and diverse community, on edge, with police and authorities ramping up security measures
- Dutch authorities also reported Maccabi fans setting fire to a Palestinian flag before the match, chanting anti-Arab slurs
THE HAGUE: The Netherlands is still dealing with the social and political fallout of violence a week ago in the streets of Amsterdam between supporters of Maccabi Tel Aviv and men on scooters.
The attacks have put Amsterdam, famous for its tolerance and diverse community, on edge, with police and authorities ramping up security measures.
Supporters of the Maccabi Tel Aviv club were chased by men on scooters and beaten after a Europa League match against Ajax in Amsterdam on November 7.
Dutch authorities also reported Maccabi fans setting fire to a Palestinian flag before the match, chanting anti-Arab slurs and vandalising a taxi.
The violence took place against the backdrop of an increasingly polarized Europe, with heightened tensions following a rise in anti-Semitic, anti-Israeli and Islamophobic attacks since the start of the war in Gaza.
Police, prosecutors and other law authorities have launched a massive probe into the incidents surrounding the Maccabl-Ajax match, making eight arrests so far.
During a parliamentary debate late on Wednesday, Dutch Justice Minister David van Weel said the investigation was “racing ahead” and that police so far were targeting 29 suspects, based on images taken on the night.
Van Weel said investigations were hampered by perpetrators wearing hoodies and that the incidents happened at night.
At the same debate, far-right MP Geert Wilders, leader of the biggest party in the coalition government, claimed the perpetrators of the violence against Maccabi Tel Aviv football fans were “all Muslims” and “for the most part Moroccans.”
The anti-Islam Wilders called for the attackers to be prosecuted “for terrorism, lose their passports and kicked out of the country.”
But opposition parties condemned Wilders’ statements, saying he was “pouring oil on the fire, abusing the genuine fear and pain of one group to stoke hate against another.”
Many opposition politicians and commentators said although anti-Semitism was abhorrent, the violence was not one-side, pointing out Maccabi supporters had chanted anti-Arab slurs, vandalized a taxi and burned a Palestinian flag.
On Monday, Dutch Prime Minister Dick Schoof promised “hard action” against those responsible for attacks on Maccabi supporters, referring to the perpetrators as men “with a migration background.”
Schoof is widely expected to announce a raft of measures to combat anti-Semitism following a cabinet meeting on Friday.
This includes heavier sentences for people found guilty of anti-Semitism and a proposal by the Christian-based opposition CDA party that they should be obliged to make a visit to Dutch World War II deportation camps for Jews.
Both Amsterdam’s Jewish and Muslim communities are still reeling in the aftermath of last week’s incident.
Schoof told parliamentarians he regarded the outpouring of violence “as an integration problem” in the country and specifically in cities like Amsterdam.
Long known as a refuge for Jews, the Dutch capital’s reputation was tarnished when tens of thousands of Jewish residents were deported to Nazi death camps during the World War II, including Anne Frank and her family.
Today “the Jewish community is under a lot of pressure,” Chanan Hertzberger, chairman of the country’s umbrella Central Jewish Consultation (CJO) group said earlier this week after meeting Schoof.
“Real measures are needed against anti-Semitism, including new legislation and heavier sentences,” Hertzberger said.
But a representative of Amsterdam’s Muslim community said it was unfair from politicians to target a whole community because of the actions of a few.
“It is disappointing that the incident is being politicized and abused,” said Said Bouharrou, board member at the Contact Organization Muslim and Government.
“I am shocked by politicians who, instead of de-escalating, are actually adding fuel to the fire. There is talk of an integration problem and of taking away dual nationality,” he told the NOS public broadcaster.
“In this way, an entire community is being dismissed as a problem case. There are a million Muslims in the Netherlands who are doing incredibly well and who reject any form of anti-Semitism,” Bouharrou said.
Dutch police said on Thursday they had opened an inquiry into alleged police brutality during and after a banned pro-Palestinian protest in Amsterdam in which 281 demonstrators were detained.
Social media footage showed riot police hitting protesters with batons after they were bussed to the outskirts of the Dutch capital following Wednesday night’s protest.
Philippines braces for severe flooding as fifth typhoon hits in a month
- 4 previous storms that hit the country killed at least 159 people
- Authorities have started preemptive evacuations ahead of another tropical storm
MANILA: The fifth major storm to hit the Philippines in a month made landfall on Thursday as authorities warned that it could cause widespread flooding in a country already struggling to deal with the impact of previous disasters.
Four other storms — Trami, Kong-rey, Yinxing and Toraji — that had struck the Philippines since late October killed at least 159 people, displaced millions and caused widespread destruction mainly in the country’s north, having triggered landslides and inundated entire towns with severe flooding.
The government was “on red alert status due to the threats” of Typhoon Usagi — locally known as Ofel — that hit the country’s most populous island of Luzon at about 1:30 p.m. on Thursday, the Philippine Office of Civil Defense said.
Authorities were also bracing for yet another severe tropical storm, Man-yi, that was brewing in the Pacific and expected to hit the northern Philippines this weekend.
“Preemptive evacuation will be conducted starting today until Friday night in the Bicol region,” Cesar Idio, officer-in-charge at the Office of Civil Defense, said in a press briefing.
Hundreds of thousands of people were displaced in Bicol, southern Luzon, when Tropical Storm Trami swept the region last month.
Typhoon Toraji blew away from the country’s north only two days ago after unleashing floods, knocking down power lines and forcing more than 42,000 people to evacuate their homes.
“National and local governments are still actively responding to the residual needs brought about by Kristine, Leon, Marce and Nika, while response operations for Ofel and preparations for Pepito are ongoing,” Idio added, using the local names of the recent storms.
President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s administration has spent more than 1 billion pesos ($17 million) to aid typhoon-hit communities, the Presidential Communications Office said. The government has prepared about 2.2 billion pesos in funds and supplies this week for expected disaster response efforts.
Usagi had weakened and was downgraded from a super typhoon after it made landfall on Thursday, the national weather agency, PAGASA, said.
However, the agency warned that the typhoon still carried a “high risk of life-threatening storm surge” up to three meters in the low-lying and coastal provinces of Batanes, Ilocos Sur, Ilocos Norte and Cagayan.
The Philippines is the country most at risk from natural disasters, according to the 2024 World Risk Report.
Every year, the Southeast Asian nation sees about 20 tropical storms and typhoons affecting millions of people, as the weather becomes more unpredictable and extreme due to the changing climate.
In 2013, Typhoon Haiyan, one of the most powerful tropical cyclones ever recorded, displaced millions of people and left more than 6,000 people dead or missing in the central Philippines.
Toxic smog chokes Indian capital as air pollution turns ‘severe’
- Pollution levels in parts of Delhi reach Air Quality Index score of 461
- Delhi was second most polluted city on Thursday after Lahore, Pakistan
NEW DELHI: New Delhi woke to a thick layer of toxic smog engulfing the city on Thursday, with residents afraid to step outside as the air quality deteriorated to severe levels.
Pollution in the Indian capital and surrounding areas was in the severe category for the second day in a row, with some areas reaching an Air Quality Index score of 461, according to the Central Pollution Control Board. On the AQI scale from 0 to 500, good air quality is represented by levels below 50, while levels above 300 are dangerous.
The severe pollution forced many residents to remain indoors to avoid getting sick.
“For the past two days, it has been particularly bad. I have stopped working out and walking in the open. I am doing basic exercises at home. Children are also falling sick,” said Sunieta Ojha, a lawyer in Delhi.
Bhavreen Kandhari, an activist in south Delhi, said it was “heartbreaking” that her children had to grow up in such conditions.
“It feels so disappointing, it is getting worse. I am trying to make things better so that my children don’t face this,” she said.
“There is no running, no walking. Because of the pollution, I withdrew my teenage girls some years back from playing basketball.”
According to IQAir, a Swiss-based Air Quality Index, monitoring group, the Indian capital was the world’s second most polluted city on Thursday, after nearby Lahore, the capital of Punjab province in Pakistan.
“The air pollution levels are already in the severe category and it’s highly toxic to breathe in,” said Shambhavi Shukla, clean air and sustainable mobility program manager at the Centre for Science and Environment, New Delhi.
The main pollutant, she said, was PM 2.5, particulate matter measuring less than 2.5 microns — about 30 times smaller than the width of a human hair.
“The concentration of these particles is extremely high right now,” she said. “Even a healthy person exposed to this kind of air will have trouble in breathing, so that’s a common thing that they will start developing some breathing issues.”
The sources of Delhi pollution were local — vehicles, construction sites, residential cooking, and waste burning — and those from neighboring areas — mainly the annual fires in India’s northwest and southeast, as farmers clear stubble to prepare fields to plant wheat.
“In the last two days what is also happening is that there is no wind, so there is no movement (of the air),” Shukla said, explaining that the pollution brought earlier from Punjab and Uttar Pradesh, which had accumulated in Delhi, was also trapped as a result of the colder weather, which prevented the pollutants from rising and dispersing.
“There is a prediction that in the next three days we will again go back to the very poor air category ... As soon as the wind picks up, this pollution will start dispersing.”
