Angel or demon? China's trade impact on Latin American countries

China's economy has expanded in leaps and bounds to become a major world trade player. For Latin America, China's growth is both a threat and an opportunity. With a few exceptions, Latin American trade clearly benefits from this country's global integration. In order to analyse China's trade impact, we study the country's export and import structures. A database of 620 different goods and two indices of trade competition were used to compare the impact of China on 34 economies (including 15 Latin American countries) during the period 1998-2004. In general terms, the results confirm that there is no relevant trade competition between China and Latin America in the United States market. Not surprisingly, those countries that export mainly commodities face less competition. This is to be expected, since China is a net importer of raw materials and Latin America has a strong commodity endowment.