In June 2026, Argentina, Chile, Costa Rica, El Salvador, and Panama joined Pax Silica, the US flagship initiative to build an artificial intelligence (AI) ecosystem and secure supply chains with trusted partners. Welcoming them, US Under Secretary for Economic Affairs Jacob Helberg framed the accession in terms of material complementarities on strategic minerals, logistics, infrastructure, and digital services that these “friendly states” provide (U.S. Department of State 2026a). In an opposite direction, on July 16th, Brazil, Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela became founding signatories of the China-led World Artificial Intelligence Cooperation Organization (WAICO), a governance-centred forum (China Ministry of Foreign Affairs 2026). At first, these initiatives do not formally conflict, since Washington seeks supply chain and economic security, while Beijing promotes governance norms and open-source development as a public good for the Global South. Yet, Washington has framed Pax Silica membership as a commitment to exclusivity, signaling that overlapping participation in duplicative initiatives would not be allowed (Martina 2026).

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Brazilian diplomat Celso Amorim observed that “neither Latin America nor Europe is leading the artificial intelligence race,” and that “what we see today are two poles, the United States and China” (Patrick 2026). Latin American states are, nonetheless, not mere spectators in the global AI race, but stakeholder actors whose positions are clarified by distinct paths for development and visions for international order. This article argues that these positions are clarified by a long-standing regional divide between Americanism, which pursues national interest through alignment with the US, and Autonomism, which pursues it through diversified engagement with alternative great powers (Lima 1994; Hirst 2005; Milani, Pinheiro and Lima 2017;), a role currently occupied by China (Bilhar 2024).

Rival AI Architectures in Latin America

Latin America’s positioning rests on two overlapping structures of patronage that predate AI. Beijing has increasingly treated the region as a strategic priority since 2008. It moved from a commodity trade-based relationship of the early 2000s to a complex economic statecraft and incorporation within Beijing’s strategic outlook for international order. During the last decade, China proliferated strategic partnerships with the region, as well as integrating it within the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), the Community with a Shared Future (CSF), and its Global Initiatives. These cooperations have been particularly successful with states marginalized by Washington, wherein Beijing has emerged as a reliable alternative source for investments and loans (Legler, Turzi, and Tzili-Apango 2020). When confronted with Trump’s new hemispheric strategy to reestablish hegemony in the Western Hemisphere, China released its third White Paper on the region, signaling that Beijing will not withdraw despite Washington’s pressure.

China’s AI engagement is orchestrated in this architecture, exemplified by the BRI’s Digital Silk Road, integrated within the China-CELAC Forum, a forum established in 2015 that allows Beijing to engage with the region integrally. More recently, at the Fourth China-CELAC Ministerial Meeting in Beijing in May 2025, President Xi pledged to expand AI cooperation and advance the China-LAC Science and Technology Partnership (The State Council, 2025a). Concurrently, a parallel China-CELAC Internet Development and Cooperation Forum gathered representatives from 13 Latin American states, featuring cybersecurity and AI development and governance (Qing and Liu 2025). The Third White Paper pledges to “explore advancing high-tech cooperation” in AI and to implement China’s Global AI Governance Initiative and Global AI Governance Action Plan with the region (The State Council 2025b). Besides policy directions, Chinese firms such as Huawei, ZTE, and Zhipu AI have invested in 5G networks, “AI-in-a-box” hardware, and data center joint ventures in Colombia, Brazil, and Chile (Zuppello 2025).

This approach, however, is not distinctive to Latin America. China convened similar forums with Africa, months after the CELAC iteration, while the China-ASEAN Artificial Intelligence Cooperation has already held its fourth edition (Fujian Province 2025; ANN 2026). This is better observed in WAICO composition, as only four of the 29 signatory members are from Latin America. Due to the possibility of representation in governance and facilitated access to open-source models, WAICO is particularly attractive to the Global South (United Nations 2024). Yet, the limited Latin American uptake may also reflect that most regional states enter the AI ecosystem as suppliers of critical minerals rather than autonomous developers.

Against China’s framing of AI as an “international public good” (China Ministry of Foreign Affairs 2025), Washington’s Pax Silica functions as a node within a wider doctrinal reassertion of US hegemony, particularly in the Western Hemisphere. The Trump administration revived the Monroe Doctrine in 2025 through its “Trump Corollary,” committing to reassert US regional primacy and counter narcotrafficking, illegal immigration, rival political regimes such as Cuba and Venezuela, and extra-hemispheric great powers’ presence in the hemisphere through coercive diplomacy and political pressure. Although the AI race in the hemisphere is not mentioned in the 2025 National Security Strategy, the 2026 National Defense Strategy, nor the 2025 AI Action Plan, Pax Silica fully integrates the region as a critical node in the US AI ecosystem. Such integration is orchestrated by ensuring US leadership in the AI race via securing access to critical minerals exports, advanced manufacturing, reduction of regulatory barriers, and technology infrastructure for partner nations, while denying it to competitors (U.S. Department of State 2025). Considering its strategic concepts emphasizing critical minerals, logistics, and infrastructure, Latin America may function as a critical node in US’s supply chain economic security, as observed by Under Secretary Helberg’s emphasis on Costa Rica’s and El Salvador’s nearshoring potential due to geographical proximity, and Argentina’s and Chile’s lithium reserves (U.S. Department of State 2026a).

Yet perhaps the most strategically exposed state in the Western Hemisphere is Panama. After the Trump administration vowed in 2025 to retake control of the Canal, President Mulino withdrew Panama from the BRI in February 2025, and in January 2026 its Supreme Court annulled the legal framework behind Hong Kong-based CK Hutchison’s concessions at Balboa and Cristóbal. Panama has since deepened........

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