Reengaging the northern triangle

Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala certainly continue to call for greater cooperation and funding from Washington, but they are also entertaining overtures from China, a tactic Washington will be unable to ignore…

The U.S. has had little reason to change its approach to the Northern Triangle – that is, until China began to court the region more earnestly and vice versa. Washington has been particularly worried about El Salvador. In 2018, the government decided to recognize China over Taiwan, when Beijing expressed an interest in developing La Union port. More recently, when the president removed the supreme court judges, Washington sent an envoy to San Salvador who was ignored by the president. More, a week later, the legislature ratified an agreement with China for the construction of a stadium, library and water treatment facility. Vaccine diplomacy has also been put in play with several shipments of China’s Sinopharm delivered to El Salvador…

The U.S. faces a pressing need to consider how it wants to reengage the Northern Triangle in light of this competition. Right now, Washington holds the upper hand on the economic front and is the dominant hemispheric security power. However, China is more than capable of undermining Washington’s position with just a few grand gestures. Beijing’s foothold in the region is small for now, but it’s too strategically valuable not to be at least targeted, especially considering that the U.S. threshold for tolerating risk there is so low.