“This is our hemisphere.” The day after the abduction of former Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro, this was how US Secretary of State and National Security Adviser Marco Rubio justified the operation. “This is the Western Hemisphere. This is where we live – and we’re not going to allow the Western Hemisphere to be a base of operation for adversaries, competitors, and rivals of the United States.” The Trump administration made no secret of its intentions: China, and to a lesser extent Russia, were its primary targets to expel from what it considers its own backyard.

“We will deny non-Hemispheric competitors the ability to position forces or other threatening capabilities, or to own or control strategically vital assets, in our Hemisphere,” reads the national security strategy presented by President Donald Trump and published in December 2025. “We want other nations to see us as their partner of choice and we will (through various means) discourage their collaboration with others.” Washington turned words into action in Caracas on January 3, after already issuing substantial threats to Panama in the spring of 2025 over its ties with China – specifically, the two ports at either end of the canal operated by Hong Kong-based company CK Hutchison.

At first glance, the idea of spheres of influence around major powers requiring their own space might also seem appealing to the United States’ main competitor. After all, as early as 2009, Beijing submitted to the United Nations a map of the South China Sea bordered by nine dashes close to the coasts of neighboring states – Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia, Brunei, and the Philippines – to assert that this sea was naturally and historically its own, regardless of international law recognition.

Relentless struggle

Just to the northeast, China also claims that Taiwan is one of its provinces and that its reunification is “inevitable,” despite the strong desire of the Taiwanese people to maintain their identity and democratic system. During his campaign in July 2024, Trump himself stated the simple fact that the island is close to China and far from the United States. The illusion of delineated spheres of influence between the two global giants might have seemed to be taking shape.

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