Kate Buckhurst

About half of all imports and exports in the U.S. go through ports. This reality means that port owners and operators have access to immense amounts of information about when and where certain goods are moving from port to port. Our team is focused on understanding the implications of Chinese influence in ports in Latin America, and how that influence poses a national security threat to the United States. We are working with the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) to update and expand their existing database, No Safe Harbor, that currently measures Chinese influence and U.S. reliance on 37 ports in Latin America with known Chinese ownership. In addition to updating the information to account for recent events, we are evaluating an expanded list of factors that impact U.S. national security, including the presence of organized crime, drug trafficking, and Chinese technology systems at each port. We will consider these factors in an updated risk-score analysis, reranking the ports in Latin America based on the potential threat they pose to U.S. national security.