Experts: China Stalking Florida From 'America's Backyard'

Florida, once a battleground state, has often been a presidential election bellwether, but now its outsized influence and proximity to Latin America and the Caribbean make it a target for Chinese influencing campaigns, experts warn.

"One of the most remarkable gains in Chinese foreign policy in recent years is the increasing power and presence of the communist state in Latin America and the Caribbean, a region traditionally considered America's backyard," Adelphi University Dean Vincent Wang told Newsweek. "This is due to China's growing diplomatic clout, the leftward inclination of several countries, and America's neglect.

"China is strategically focused on the state of Florida because of its importance to the region and to U.S. national politics. China is interested in getting involved in U.S. electoral politics.

"I would say that the threat posed by China today is more serious than the threat posed by the Soviet Union during the 1962 Cuban missile crisis."

China denies there are any "geopolitical calculations" in its influence campaigns ongoing in Caribbean and Latin American countries (LAC) to the tune of more than $10 billion in six Caribbean countries — Jamaica, Guyana, Trinidad and Tobago, Antigua and Barbuda, Cuba, and the Bahamas — between 2005 and 2022, according to a House Foreign Affairs Committee report.

"Cooperation between China and LAC countries has won popular support because it respects the will of the people, meets the needs of regional countries, and provides reliable options and broad prospects for the revitalization of the region," a Chinese Embassy in Washington, D.C., spokesperson told Newsweek.

"We take no interest in interfering in the internal affairs of any countries, including the elections in the U.S."

But President Donald Trump's tariffs on countries, even those in "America's backyard," might present an opportunity for China to swoop in, according to Whittier College political science professor Deborah Norden.

"Under the Trump administration, the United States is rapidly yielding its already declining hegemony in Latin America to China," she told Newsweek. "The threat of tariffs drives Latin American countries to expand economic integration with more eager partners, at the same time that the obliteration of U.S. foreign aid erases decades of cultivating loyalty in the region.

"In this context, China's rising role, especially in the Caribbean, may put Florida at risk in that its neighbors can no longer be expected to ally with the United States in an international conflict, particularly one between the U.S. and China.

"The vulnerability of U.S. elections to both money and external propaganda also creates the possibility that China could, if it found it in its interest, choose to try to toss some coins on the scale of American elections in Florida or elsewhere."

Florida GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis has already been keen to the potential burgeoning threat of Chinese influence in his state, taking actions for years to decouple Florida public and private enterprises from the Chinese Communist Party tentacles.

"Gov. DeSantis has prioritized the eradication of the Chinese Communist Party's interference in Florida," a DeSantis spokesperson told Newsweek. "Under Gov. DeSantis' leadership, Florida delivered the strongest posturing in the nation to confront economic, strategic, and security threat — the Chinese Communist Party."

But even Florida's proactive stance has had China putting a "threefold" threat into "America's backyard," according to the Hudson Institute's John Lee.

"First, increased economic, financial, and technological dependency on China offers Beijing opportunities to exert influence in the geopolitical decisions and even domestic politics of smaller states," Lee told Newsweek.

"Second, China seeks to redefine and change the rules and standards used by nations to conduct commerce and trade in its favor.

"Third, Chinese development and operation of ports in foreign countries have been used by Beijing to gather significant military and economic intelligence for the purposes of aiding China in its geopolitical rivalry with the U.S."