South American politician with China ties travels to California to meet with Newsom

A key China ally with presidential ambitions in Peru traveled late last month to California to participate in a sending-off ceremony for a batch of trains donated by the Biden administration, according to reporting by Peruvian news outlets.

Peruvian outlet Justo Medio reported at the time that Lima Mayor Rafael Lopez Aliaga, who is rumored to be considering a run for president of Peru in 2026, was in California late last month to discuss the transport of a batch of CalTrain locomotives, which were donated to Lima by the U.S. government under the Biden administration.  

Nate Picarsic and Emily de La Bruyère, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), recently published a study on Lopez Aliaga’s “deep” financial ties to China through his company PeruRail, which has seen its revenue rise to over $65 million per year due to increased shipments from Minera Las Bambas, a Chinese-owned joint venture counting state-owned mining giant China Minmetals as its majority backer.

The report alleged that China has been “cultivating” Lopez Aliaga for higher office in Peru in hopes of growing its mineral and battery supplies harvesting in South America. The report goes so far as to dub Lopez Aliaga “China’s man in Peru.”

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“China’s mining presence in Peru is a direct boon for López Aliaga,” the report said, giving Beijing “a powerful beachhead in Peru.”

The report said, “This leaves an influential Peruvian political leader aligned with and linked to China, its resource project, and the broader Belt and Road Initiative of which it is part.”

In the last several years, Chinese investment in South America, and Peru especially, has significantly increased. 

According to NBC News, China invested $1.3 billion in a massive deepwater port in Chancay, Peru, just north of Lima. 

Chinese President Xi Jinping participated in the port’s opening ceremony in 2024, during which he called the port the start of China’s 21st-century maritime Silk Road, according to the outlet.

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According to Picarsic, China has also been investing heavily in Lima’s infrastructure, most notably dominating its electricity industry, all of which Lopez Aliaga has been a “linchpin” piece in moving Chinese dominance forward.

Now, with Lopez Aliaga possibly entering Peru’s presidential race, Picarsic explained that this all “looks like a telltale sign of China’s handiwork.”

He also called the U.S.’s donation of trains to Peru “too little, too late” to combat China’s growing influence in the region.

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“We’re coming with a donation of some number of decommissioned rail cars. But this guy, who is in cahoots with China, who’s coming to take them and he’s taking them back to run on Chinese rail feeding into a Chinese port, helping to move goods from a Chinese mine.”

Former Secretary of State Antony Blinken participated in a train-donation ceremony last November in Lima, Peru, where he praised the project as an opportunity to “strengthen the ties between Peru and the United States” and said the trains “are not just a symbol, but the practical manifestation of possibilities – the possibilities that come when we connect to each other.”

“This agreement is a testament to the strength and durability of the U.S. and Peru’s longstanding and mutually beneficial relationship,” he added. “I am so proud to have Caltrain be a member of that mutually beneficial relationship.”