I'm John Batchel with my colleague Gavin Ellis of the U.S. Army War College Strategic Studies Institute.

This is the New World Report. Professor Peru has gone through some bad patches. Most recently,

they continue to have presidents who are untrustworthy and are removed by the legislature.

Right now, they're pending a campaign for a new president,

there's an acting president, to R in jail. At the same time, you have very carefully explicated the significance of the deep water port built entirely by the Chinese investors,

Costco, possessed by Chinese investors to make all the decisions in Peru.

I'm also told that there's a very large and active Chinatown Chinese diaspora

dating from the 19th century in Peru, as there is in many of America's countries,

all of them, the whole of the continent and the North American continent as well.

There was a huge emigration push for labor and for Asian travelers.

They were brought here in great numbers, and their descendants are still here.

However, that means there's Chinese influence everywhere in Peru.

I'm told by a young man Omar Sumar, my talk to member writing for the Civitas Institute.

This proposed non-NATO military partnership with the U.S., how does that balance out the Chinese investor class?

Well, it's a great question, John.

And the reality is that this is probably one initiative among many that we'll continue

to see, especially as the new U.S. national security strategy of the second Trump administration

prioritizes the Western Hemisphere in pushing back against Chinese influence.

And also gives more weight to using military and other more non-traditional means of doing so.

Specifically, this designation is a major non-NATO ally, which has been proposed by the United States, is a vehicle that gives certain benefits to Peru and it facilitates expanded U.S. Peruvian military-to-military cooperation. And so when you're a major non-Natel

ally, you know, as Columbia was given also that designation, it facilitates your ability to get

excess U.S. defense articles that that you might need to be able to get

...