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US House Democrats on Tuesday used a hearing on Chinese port investments in Latin America to blast billionaire Elon Musk and warn of potential national security risks from Republican plans to shut down the US Agency for International Development.
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Convened by a House subcommittee on transportation and maritime security, the hearing focused on how China’s presence in ports in Panama, Peru and Brazil could affect Washington’s interests in the region.
US congressman Carlos Gimenez of Florida said Hong Kong-based company Hutchison Ports’ operations in two ports on the Atlantic and Pacific sides of the Panama Canal gave Beijing “a strategic position over one of the world’s most important waterways”.
“[It] provides the Communist Party with an opportunity to exert influence over commercial shipping, gather intelligence on American and allied vessel traffic and potentially restrict the mobility of our Navy in a time of crisis,” he said.
Gimenez, a Cuban-born Republican from Florida, repeated an argument widely adopted in Washington since US President Donald Trump announced his intention to assert control over the canal.
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“The United States cannot and will not accept the scenario where a foreign adversary, one that openly seeks to undermine our global standing, controls infrastructure critical to us, homeland security, military readiness and economic stability,” Gimenez added.
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