U.S. to prioritize Latin America in vaccine supply after Honduras threatens to cease recognizing Taiwan over China

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The U.S. government will prioritize Latin America in distributing the 80 million Covid-19 vaccines it plans to donate in the coming weeks, in part to prevent China’s “vaccine diplomacy” from leading countries in the region to stop recognizing Taiwan as a sovereign nation in exchange.

As reported by the Financial Times, the intention was confirmed by a senior official of Joe Biden’s administration. It came after Honduras accepted the possibility of cutting ties with Taipei to gain access to vaccines produced by the Asian giant.

Carlos Alberto Madero, a senior government official in Tegucigalpa, said that securing vaccines is “much more urgent than anything else while the country wants to avoid this scenario.” “This places us in a tough situation,” Madero said. “The Honduran people are beginning to see that China is helping its allies, and we are starting to wonder why our own are not helping us.”

The Central American nation has been unable to purchase many vaccines so far and has experienced long delays in deliveries of contracts already signed. To date, less than 1% of its 9 million inhabitants have been immunized.

Consequently, and faced with the urgency of securing vaccines, Madero cautioned that this situation could “definitely lead to changes in foreign policy.” He also said that the Honduran government had requested vaccines from the United States and that it had been promised help, but to date, it has not received any.

For his part, the U.S. official said that the Biden administration would help Honduras and other countries in the region but did not specify a timetable. “Aid is on the way, and we will indeed deliver, whereas the Chinese have often made promises but not kept them…We can’t blame other countries for accepting vaccines. They have a responsibility to vaccinate, but nothing China gives is free,” he cautioned.

The U.S. Department of State said it was “deeply concerned” with the challenges Honduras is facing. “Beijing is exploiting [the pandemic] to coerce vulnerable nations,” warned Marco Rubio, the top Republican on the Senate intelligence committee.

Washington has stepped up its diplomatic engagement with Paraguay after China’s regime offered to supply vaccines to abandon its diplomatic recognition of Taiwan. At the time, Secretary of State Antony Blinken approached Paraguay’s President Mario Abdo Benitez in a move that a U.S. official said was intended to provide public support to Taiwan’s allies.

This maneuver by Xi Jinping’s regime is not new. In recent years Beijing has used its economic power to persuade a third of Taiwan’s allies, including Panama in 2017 and El Salvador and the Dominican Republic in 2018, to change their diplomatic recognition. This has intensified since the start of the pandemic.

Taiwan has accused China of “using vaccines to exchange political and diplomatic benefits with countries that urgently need them,” which it called a “shameful act.” Like several Central American nations, Taipei is redoubling its efforts to secure vaccines for its own people in the midst of its first major coronavirus outbreak.

According to the Financial Times, more than half of the 144 million doses delivered to Latin America’s ten most populous countries were sent by China.

To date, Honduras has not been able to secure a contract for the supply of Chinese vaccines. “We believe that geopolitics plays a role with vaccines (…) Obviously, one begins to see that countries with closer relations with China have greater access to vaccines,” said Madero.

Honduras’ President Juan Orlando Hernández even raised the possibility of opening a trade office in China to improve relations with Xi Jinping’s regime.

During a presentation to the U.S. Congress, one of the top experts on China’s role in the region explained that the vaccine shortage and the need to overcome the pandemic and its resulting socio-economic crisis make Latin American countries increasingly susceptible to vaccine diplomacy from China, Russia, and even Cuba.

“In the context of such great need, and with the United States to date providing little vaccine support beyond its contributions to COVAX, China, Russia and now even Cuba have filled the void,” Evan Ellis told the Subcommittee on Western Hemisphere, Civilian Security, Migration and International Economic Policy of the House of Representatives last Thursday.

“Vaccines, in some ways, have become another commercial opportunity for the People’s Republic of China, resembling Chinese behavior patterns in other sectors (…) In fact, the People’s Republic of China established a US$1 billion loan fund to help Latin American governments buy Chinese-made vaccines, just as it lends money to Latin American governments to build infrastructure projects with their own companies, equipment, and workers,” he added.

In the case of China, the expert stressed that it supplied its Sinovac, Sinopharm, and CanSino vaccines to at least 12 Latin American countries. “Chinese vaccines already represent 62% of the total vaccines contracted by Chile, 45% of Peru’s vaccines and 30% of Argentina’s.”

On the other hand, Joe Biden’s government assured this Wednesday that the United States would be the world’s largest vaccine supplier, after increasing to 80 million the doses it will deliver to the rest of the world, which will be distributed through the COVAX platform and also in coordination with Washington’s partners.

Gayle Smith, the Department of State’s coordinator for the global response to Covid-19, said that a final decision has not yet been made about the destinations of the vaccines to be donated. “We are looking at all regions of the world, and all are in need. We are looking at how to maximize coverage and where they will be most effective. Demand is everywhere,” she said at a press conference.

“The United States will be the largest supplier of vaccines ever (…). 80 million is a start; we believe there will be more doses shared worldwide. The U.S. wants to lead, but it requires everyone’s effort and to see other countries increasing their shared vaccines,” added Smith, appointed by Biden in April.

Along these lines, she confirmed that the White House will allocate a significant portion of doses to the COVAX platform (a global vaccine access fund focused on lower-income countries), but is also working with its partners, such as the G-7 and the European Union, to define the global response.

Source: infobae

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