Afrasianet - Ibrahim Younis - Energy in Latin America is shifting from an economy to a geopolitics. A global power struggle over oil, minerals and the rules of the game.
Energy in Latin America is no longer an economic file that revolves around oil, gas, and electricity; it has become a testing ground for redistributing influence in the international system. The region combines heavy oil and offshore reserves, gas that feeds power power plants and industry, and minerals that go into batteries and new energy grids. Therefore, security, financial, and technical calculations intersect simultaneously. The United States treats this field as an extension of what it calls its "vital field," and wants its supply chains, finance, and pricing to remain under its roof.
On the other hand, China and Russia are stepping up as windows to break this monopoly, share the market, and expand the margin of movement for their allies, and although they do not work in a cooperative and planned manner within Latin America, their activities intersect rather than conflict.
The ongoing conflict is over the rules of the game: who finances, who builds, who secures transportation, in what currency the bills are paid, and who owns the keys to maintenance and data. Washington has old but effective tools of hegemony: the dollar, the banking system, credit ratings, sanctions, and a network of transnational companies intertwined with its security institutions. China and Russia offer alternative paths: financing on less than dictated terms, long-term contracts, and technology and services that don't all pass through the West. This alternative is not perfect, but it weakens Washington's ability to It monopolizes options, and gives Latin capitals room to barter rather than submit.
The global energy transition complicates rather than mitigates the battle. The climate rhetoric and the transition to clean energy does not eliminate oil and gas, but rather redraws the demand map and creates a parallel race for lithium, copper and nickel, and on electricity grids and storage. Latin America is at the center of this map: oil in Venezuela, Mexico and Brazil, gas in Bolivia and Argentina, copper in Chile and Peru, and the lithium triangle. The United States wants an energy transition that preserves its industrial centrality and provides raw materials at the lowest political cost with the Keeping industries with high profit margins within them.
While China wants to secure inputs to its giant industry and stabilize markets for its technologies, Russia wants to protect its position in oil and gas and expand its trade outlets under the pressure of sanctions. Liquefied gas, wind farms, and regional grid connectivity are also entering a new race for control of the electrical infrastructure.
China began as a huge customer of raw materials and then became a financier and executor of projects. Its development bank loans and oil payment agreements allowed beleaguered or cash-strapped governments to breathe outside the terms of the IMF and bond markets. Its companies expanded into power transmission lines and generating stations, and in the construction of ports and railways that serve energy and mineral exports.
This presence depends not only on money, but also on extensive manufacturing capacity that lowers the cost of equipment, on speed of completion, and on the willingness of decades to come. Political calculations, on the other hand, are not absent: Beijing favors stability and flow security, and is concerned about government change or street unrest, and demands guarantees that make the state a partner rather than just a supplier. Beijing also uses currency swap agreements and training local cadres to reduce dependence on Western service providers.
Russia is approaching from a different angle. Its strength is not so much in its infusion of loans as it is in its expertise in hydrocarbon resources, oil trade networks, and technology associated with exploration in complex environments. It also invests in energy diplomacy: partnerships with national companies facing a Western blockade, and experts, technologies and services that help keep the fields operational when Western companies withdraw.
For Washington, any space for Russia in the Western Hemisphere is a security breach before it is a trade competition, so it uses tools of political deterrence, media, and threat with sanctions against any cooperation with it. Russia, for its part, is taking advantage of the Latin need to diversify suppliers and offers flexible arrangements, but sometimes bumps into funding limits and insurance and transportation risks. In some files, experience in thermal or nuclear plants is presented, adding a strategic dimension that goes beyond pure trade.
Venezuela provides the most intense example of this clash. The United States has not been content with market competition; it has moved the conflict to the level of state strangulation through sanctions, drying up revenues, criminalizing financial dealing, and attempts to impose alternative legitimacy. The result has been a temporary decline in the state's ability to maintain and invest, erode services, and open the door to a shadow economy and smuggling. In this vacuum, China and Russia have emerged as conduits for oil cycling, equipment and limited credit support, with shipping and marketing arrangements that circumvent restrictions.
Today, it accounts for 90% of Venezuela's oil production. Such support does not solve the structural crisis, but it does ease the burden of sanctions and blockades. Today, Washington is at the height of its ongoing aggression against Venezuela and the Caribbean since last August, and its motivation is centered on Venezuelan oil and gas and the coast of Guyana, despite raising the slogan "War on Drugs" as a sign of its military operations.
In Mexico, the conflict is emerging in a quieter, but less significant, way. The country is trying to regain its role in the energy sector after decades of neoliberalism that has opened the way for foreign companies and tied the decision to decades. Washington is pushing through trade agreements and legal disputes, waving "investment climate" reports whenever the government tries to adjust market rules or subsidize public companies. China is leading in the electricity and equipment sectors, looking for a foothold in metals, solar and battery supply chains, taking advantage of the proximity. The market is of extensive Mexican industry. Russia is less present here, but the mere existence of alternatives gives Mexico room to negotiate with the North.
Brazil presents a complex landscape: a continental country, a national corporation with global weight, and deep offshore fields that require huge technology and funding. Here, Washington cannot easily use the weapon of sanctions, so it moves to other tools: influence within financial institutions, diplomatic pressure, and trying to encircle partnerships that give China a role in the ports and communications needed to manage projects.
China is a major trading partner, buying oil and minerals, participating in electricity and transportation projects, and offering financing in line with extensive infrastructure plans. Russia intersects with Brazil through cooperation Broader political and across the fertilizer and energy markets, and looking for spaces in services and technology. Brazil is capable of maneuvering because it is too big to be managed by orders, but it is not immune to the debt game, markets and internal political conflict.
Argentina is betting on gas and oil and on the ever-present need for hard currency. Its fields give it an opportunity to change its external balance, but it requires investments, equipment, export facilities, and political will to boost production that are currently lacking. Washington tends to associate this path with austerity and privatization prescriptions that ensure the continued operation of Western companies and the freedom to transfer profits, even if society pays the price through inflation, poverty, and the erosion of services.
China is looking for opportunities in infrastructure, power plants, and transportation networks that make export possible, preferring agreements that guarantee stable supply and calculated risk. Russia can offer technical expertise or flexible service partnerships, but its ability here is affected by its blockade and the difficulty of accessing finance and insurance. The result is that the energy sector becomes a negotiating ground for the state and the economy, not just a production file.
In Chile, Peru, and Bolivia, the battle for the minerals needed for the energy transition is embodying. Lithium and copper are the keys to batteries, grids, and new industrial engines. The United States wants to secure these resources through its companies and allies, and prefers quick concession models that give it control of the chain, from mine to factory, with minimal commitment to technology transfer or local manufacturing. China offers long purchase contracts, financing processing plants, and offers partnerships that allow for domestic value addition, because it needs stable supply chains for its industries. And within the countries themselves A conflict between those who want rapid extraction at any environmental and social cost, and those who demand mineral sovereignty, higher taxes, and the investment of revenues in education and infrastructure. Russia is less present here, but it is watching because the outcome of this race redraws demand for its oil and gas as well.
Energy cannot be separated from the infrastructure that transports and finances it. Ports, railroads, gas pipelines, and transregional power grids are as much tools of influence as they are tools of development. China ties the financing of an energy project to the construction of a port, road, or power substation, creating integration that makes it costly to get out of the relationship, while the project becomes part of a larger network of contracts and debts.
The United States tries to monopolize standards, software, and service companies that manage fields and sell spare parts, making countries technologically constrained. Even when you own the resource. Russia often operates through technical expertise and trade networks that seek new outlets, and sometimes through military and technical cooperation that adds a political layer to the economic class.
U.S. sanctions are the central knot in this ongoing conflict. They not only punish a government, but they reshape the market by blocking finance, insurance, and transportation, and pushing companies to withdraw for fear of fines. In this sense, Washington is not competing, but trying hard to prevent competition.
When it imposes restrictions on the sale of spare parts or on banking, it turns the energy sector hostage to an external decision, creating an economic bleeding that is difficult to explain to the public except as an internal failure. Circumvention: Barters, settlements in other currencies, more flexible banks, or trading through intermediaries, but in some cases these channels are costly and unstable and increase the risk margin, as the local market operates under the constant threat of the United States.
Behind all of this is the conflict of narratives. The United States presents itself as the guardian of "stability" and "democracy," but in the energy file it acts like an owner who is allowed to drill and sell. When a Latin government aligns with its interests, it turns a blind eye to corruption and inequality and makes do with a technical rhetoric about efficiency.
When another government rebells, it suddenly becomes a rogue state that threatens regional security, and any deal with China or Russia becomes a "danger" to freedom of navigation and the international order. China puts forward the narrative of development, mutual win, and respect for sovereignty, but it tends to be a long decade It makes the supplier connected to its market and technology, and quietly pushes to protect the flow of raw materials. Russia is trying to capitalize on moments of rupture between Washington and some capitals, but it faces a campaign to portray it as a constant threat, even when cooperation is purely economic.
Of course, domestic actors are not just victims but part of the battle. Financial elites and most domestic companies have historically been associated with Washington and the global financial system, and see privatization as a gateway to protect their wealth and internationalize their profits, so they are hostile to any sovereign energy policy.
On the other hand, social forces, unions, and environmental movements demand that energy be a pillar of social justice, and that revenues be diverted to health, education, and public infrastructure instead of leaking abroad or into the pockets of intermediaries. When governments look for partnerships with China or Russia, they sometimes look for a sovereign margin that allows for internal redistribution, and sometimes they only look for a new financier without changing the economy's dependence on rent. Linking projects to national industrialization plans that protect employment and reduce dependence on the outside world.
In recent years, the question of currency and pricing has returned to the forefront. When energy is priced in dollars alone, each country is exposed to U.S. interest rate hikes, liquidity shortages, and sanctions, and Washington's monetary policy becomes a tool for hegemony in the South. China, on the other hand, pushes to use its currency in some deals, and builds payment and settlement platforms that reduce dependence on U.S. channels, and ties this to expanding its trade and investment. Russia, by virtue of its experience with the blockade, tends to make similar arrangements, accepts swaps or settlements in local currencies, and considers About banks and transport companies that are not directly subordinate to the West.
These shifts are somewhat slow and do not create an immediate break in the case of the non-beleaguered Latin states, but they open a hole in the wall of hegemony by providing a ground for negotiating on the basis of multi-stakeholder. Washington responds by intimidating and linking any financial diversification to "security" risks because it understands that controlling payment is equivalent to controlling the decision.
The future of this ongoing conflict depends on three interrelated factors: the direction of global demand, the trajectory of the energy transition, and Latin America's ability to build a regional integration project. If oil and gas remain the main source of energy for the next two decades, or even a transition to clean and sustainable energy, the region will remain the hub and the appetite of the major powers will increase anyway. In both cases, US imperialism will continue to try to turn resources into tools of political discipline because it does not know how to manage a multi-choice world, but rather to manage through Punishment or guardianship.
The realistic response is not to move on to a new axis, but to expand the margin of sovereignty by diversifying partners, building local manufacturing and processing capacities, and developing regional integration that negotiates as a single bloc rather than as isolated islands. Only then does the energy shift from the curse of external conflict to a lever for development, and Washington's role diminishes from a gatekeeper to a mere party among a group of parties.