Empathy or Calculation?: A Critical Analysis of Vaccination Geopolitics in Latin America

Abstract

Vaccination geopolitics is an effort by the producer countries characterized by a struggle for access and influence that accompanies the export agreements, setting up of manufacturing plants, and donations. The Covid-19 pandemic has exacerbated vaccine nationalism, United States-China clashes, and inequality of access in Latin America. This article offers an in-depth analysis of the geopolitical strategies emerging around vaccine transactions in the region. Focusing on the precedence of geopolitical concerns over health ones, the article uses a study of transaction distribution to analyze the political preferences of the United States and the European countries, China, India, and Russia. This points to two kinds of influence: the Chinese and Russian strategies are dominated by offensive and defensive political preferences combined with a ground-up economic diplomacy, while those of the United States, Europe, and India are also offensive-defensive, but the economic diplomacy is top down.