Brazil-based scholar Elias Jabbour. Photo: screengrab from the official website of Brasil 247

By Brasil 247 - The recent escalation in US pressure on Latin America, intensified by the seizure of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and by statements suggesting the hemisphere belongs to Washington, does not change a fundamental reality: South America's economic integration with China has become structural. That was the assessment offered by Brazilian scholar Elias Jabbour in an interview with Brasil 247, where he argued the US lacks the material capacity to replace China as the region's central trade and investment partner.

"The United States is not capable of delivering to Latin America what China delivers, such as manufactured goods, machinery and electronic equipment," Jabbour said, stressing that China has far more to offer South America than the US in both industrial scale and the nature of its exports and investments.

The interview, broadcast on Brasil 247's YouTube channel, was conducted by journalist Leonardo Attuch alongside Andreia Trus, against a backdrop of rising geopolitical tension following the US operation targeting Venezuela.

Jabbour said that even if the US administration seeks to impose a hemispheric doctrine of force — which he described as a revival of the "America for the Americans" logic — it cannot undo China's entrenched role in South American trade. "Nothing changes in that regard," he said. "There's no way a decree or even a simple military occupation can change that."

According to Jabbour, Washington's attempt to reassert Latin America as its exclusive sphere of influence collides with hard economic limits: the US cannot supply the industrial goods China provides, nor can it match China's function as a market for Latin American exports. "There's no way out," he said. "There's nowhere to run. Today, the market for our products is China and India."

In Jabbour's view, the crisis triggered by Maduro's seizure may accelerate debates on sovereignty and national development across South America. He argued that, despite Washington's increasingly explicit posture, the US cannot offer a viable economic alternative to the regional relationship with China, making any attempt at decoupling both politically risky and economically unrealistic.

(Reported by Brasil 247 on Jan 6, 2026)