U.S. and China Spar for Influence on the Paraguay-Paraná River System
A surge of projects along a major South American waterway is attracting geopolitical competition and boosting regional growth.
In October 1858, U.S. President James Buchanan dispatched the largest naval deployment in U.S. history to date: 19 warships, sent not to the high seas, but to the landlocked nation of Paraguay. The force sailed in response to a previous Paraguayan attack on the USS Water Witch, a vessel charting the inland Paraguay-Paraná river system. This waterway then largely fell off Washington’s radar, overshadowed by more pressing chokepoints such as the Panama Canal and emerging Arctic sea lanes. However, recent events are transforming South America’s most commercially important river...
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