China using vaccines to push its agenda in Latin America; U.S. lags

 China is using Covid-19 vaccines to push its political and trade agenda across Latin America and the Caribbean, and the U.S. risks losing influence in the region without prompt action, lawmakers and experts say.

China in recent months sent more than 165 million Chinese-made vaccine doses to Latin America and the Caribbean, accompanied by a concerted public relations campaign highlighting Beijing's role.

The United States until recently was focused on getting the coronavirus outbreak under control, and has shipped out few vaccines. President Joe Biden has promised to give away 80 million doses but his administration has yet to announce where it will send vaccines abroad.

Members of Congress and regional experts say the administration needs to catch up with China and start getting vaccines to Latin America, and to make sure the world knows that the vaccines are coming from the U.S.

Several Latin American countries, including Chile, El Salvador, Brazil and Uruguay, are relying almost exclusively on Chinese-made vaccines, according to data from the Pan American Health Organization. Russia has also sent a smaller number of vaccines to the region.

Honduras and Paraguay, however, face a shortage of vaccines but have not received any Chinese-made doses. Both countries say they have been offered Chinese-made vaccines in return for cutting diplomatic ties with Taiwan, which China insists is part of its territory.

"China has used this moment to flex its muscles in the region," said Jason Marczak, director of the Latin American Center at the Atlantic Council think tank.

Although Beijing has faced criticism about how it handled the pandemic, which first emerged in the Chinese province of Wuhan, China has worked to focus public attention on how it is helping other countries fight the virus.

"From a public relations standpoint, China has sought to shift the narrative from China being at the center of the Covid problem to China being at the center of the Covid solution," Marczak said.

A senior Honduran official, Carlos Alberto Madero, chief cabinet coordinator, recently said the need for vaccines put his country "in a very difficult situation" and he could not rule out having to sever ties with Taiwan.

"The Honduran people start to see that China is helping its allies and we start to ask ourselves why ours are not helping us," Madero told the Financial Times.

China has denied that it has offered vaccines to countries in return for political favors. The Chinese embassy in Washington did not respond to a request for comment.

Apart from a donation of about 4 million doses to Canada and Mexico, Biden administration officials are still deliberating over which countries will receive vaccines. Lawmakers and regional experts are pushing the White House hard to place a priority on Latin America and the Caribbean, arguing the move is justified for both public health and strategic reasons.

"Without U.S. engagement and leadership, our competitors will continue efforts to use their less effective vaccines as leverage to coerce Latin America and Caribbean nations in support of a diplomatic agenda inimical to ours," three senators, Republican Marco Rubio and Democrats Bob Menendez and Tim Kaine, said in a letter to President Biden last week.

Lawmakers pressed the argument at a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing this month, saying the administration had to set priorities and ensure donations had a clear "made-in-the-USA" label.

"If you are going to prioritize the entire globe, we may not make the kind of impact we want," said Sen. Kaine of Virginia.

Gayle Smith, State Department coordinator for global COVID-19 response, replied, "I can assure you there's a lot of attention to our hemisphere."

A State Department spokesperson told NBC News that the administration "will have more to say about which countries we are distributing these vaccines to soon."

President Biden's promise to give away 80 million doses to other countries far surpasses what other governments have pledged. And Washington has committed $4 billion in support of the international COVAX platform backed by the World Health Organization, which donates vaccines to countries in need.

"We will work with COVAX and other partners to ensure safe and effective vaccines are delivered in a way that is equitable and follows the science and public health data," a spokesperson for the National Security Council said.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/china-using-vaccines-push-its-agenda-latin-america-u-s-n1268146