U.S. doesn't fear Chinese competition in Americas

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States does not see China's growing influence in Latin America as a threat to Washington's role in the region or the competitiveness of U.S. companies there, Daniel Restrepo, President Barack Obama's top Latin American adviser, said on Thursday.

China's economic influence was practically nonexistent in Latin America a decade ago, when the United States and its political and trade relations dominated the Americas.

But the Asian giant is now the leading trading partner of countries such as Brazil and Peru, while Washington has squabbled over free trade deals with Colombia and Panama and pursued few new trade initiatives in the region in recent years.

That has raised concern that Washington risks losing a valuable market, particularly as it seeks to overcome the effects of the recession. But Restrepo told the Reuters Latin American investment summit that Washington did not anticipate a diminished role in the region as China's grows.

"Particularly given the geography and the interconnectedness in the Americas, it's not a competition that we fear," Restrepo, senior director for Western Hemisphere affairs at the National Security Council, said.

"We firmly believe in the competitiveness of U.S. companies and U.S. industry," he said.

"We obviously want to ensure ... that the competition that companies have with companies from the region and companies from without the region, that that competition be a fair one, be a transparent one, be one where they have an equal chance to compete," Restrepo added.

But the overall U.S. stance is that the United States welcomes increased global engagement that brings economic development, he said.

"A more stable, more prosperous, more secure Americas is a more effective partner on a whole host of levels for the United States, their most natural partner," Restrepo said.

In a separate interview, the State Department's Craig Kelly, the principal deputy assistant secretary responsible for Latin American issues, said that while investment in the region was welcome, it was most effective if it could help all levels of society.

"There's ... a certain concern in the region that Chinese investment hasn't so far brought a lot of local employment," Kelly said.

"The Chinese are well known for doing big projects and bringing in their own workers," said Kelly, pointing to a big Chinese project to build a soccer stadium in San Jose, Costa Rica, using Chinese labor.

"Some governments have expressed some concern. Everyone wants to lower unemployment and we tend to associate a lot of our investment with employment-generating projects as do the Europeans," he said.

(Additional reporting by Deborah Charles; Editing by Peter Cooney)