China's $20 Billion Bailout For Venezuela Gives It A Caribbean Beachhead

IBD reports:

With crude at $47 a barrel and Venezuela's budget premised on oil at $120, the country is broke and looking for a bailout. Surprisingly, it got one — from China, which happens to need a strategic beachhead.

At a China-Latin America summit Tuesday, Economy Minister Rodolfo Marco Torres announced that China "completely trusts" Venezuela and would "invest" $20 billion in the country via a large package of investment spending, trade credits and possibly loans.

It would be part of what China's President Xi Jinping said would be $250 billion in investment in Latin America over the next 10 years. After all, China-Latin American trade has surged twentyfold since 2000, with $261 billion in two-way trade with the region in 2013.

China goes global.