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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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Xi Jinping (Left) and former Secretary of State Antony Blinken (Right) at a November 2024 train donation ceremony in Lima, Peru. (Getty/U.S. Embassy in Peru)
“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…
