On September 1, Peru’s recently elected far-right president, Keiko Fujimori, broke diplomatic relations with the Islamic Republic of Iran. This action constitutes the most open expression to date of her government’s subordination to the rapacious foreign policy of US imperialism.

The shameful act against a country subjected to incessant bombardment by the most powerful military power on the planet came just one day after the United States announced the robbery of the century: Washington had secured “majority US control of more than 65 billion barrels of proven oil reserves in Venezuela.”

This figure amounts to one-fifth of Venezuela’s reserves, the largest in the world. However, Washington is in fact asserting control over the country’s oil industry as a whole. The agreement was negotiated directly at the point of a gun by Marco Rubio, Trump’s principal operative in Latin America, with Venezuela’s acting president Delcy Rodríguez, without even consulting the executives of the state-owned oil company Petróleos de Venezuela (PDVSA), much less the legislature or the Venezuelan people.

The subjugation of Venezuela and its transformation into a semi-colony of US imperialism, whose resources can be used to support US global militarism, followed immediately by Peru’s breaking of diplomatic relations with Tehran, are clear indications of the globalization of the conflict.

The war in the Middle East is increasingly intertwined with the imperialist struggle for markets, resources and strategic dominance worldwide, drawing South America ever more directly into an expanding global confrontation.

Citing official government sources, the RPP news agency reported on September 1 that “Peru has been observing with growing consternation the deterioration of democracy in Iran, denounced by different United Nations mechanisms.”

RPP also noted the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ concern over restrictions imposed by Iran, including “the disruption of international trade” through the Strait of Hormuz since March 2026. According to the Foreign Ministry, these measures violate principles such as “freedom of navigation and the right of passage through straits used” for international maritime transit.

The Peruvian government also denounced “the repression of peaceful demonstrations, restrictions on freedom of the press, discrimination against women and girls, as well as the persecution of political opponents” in Iran.

“In an official statement,” RPP reported, “the Foreign Ministry said that the measure responds to the ‘firm commitment to the defense of democracy,’ considered a ‘fundamental principle’ of Peruvian foreign policy.”

The Fujimori government’s invocation of “democracy” along with its alleged concern for “peaceful demonstrations” and political oppositionists are profoundly cynical. Since taking office, it has demonstrated its readiness to resort to “states of emergency” and the deployment of the Armed Forces in the streets to confront growing social opposition.

Lima’s concern over the disruption of oil traffic through the Strait of Hormuz also has an immediate economic motivation. Weeks earlier, the president of the Central Reserve Bank of Peru (BCRP), Julio Velarde, had expressed concern that the increase in diesel and gasoline prices was more pronounced in Peru than in other countries. The resulting inflationary pressures, particularly on food, directly affect more than 60 percent of the population whose incomes fall below the cost of a family basket for a family of four.

Fujimori’s decision to align Peru more closely with Washington comes immediately after the US takeover of a major share of Venezuela’s vast oil reserves. By demonstrating her usefulness to Washington at precisely this moment, Fujimori is also positioning her government to seek preferential access to Venezuelan oil or other economic concessions that could help contain the domestic impact of soaring energy prices.

But the breaking of relations with Iran goes far beyond oil prices. Fujimori is using the crisis to ingratiate herself with Donald Trump and demonstrate that her government can serve as a reliable ally of Washington in South America.

In this arena, she is competing with Argentine President Javier Milei, Trump’s most strident ally on the continent and the only South American president to have offered direct assistance to the United States for its war against Iran. Fervently pro-US, pro-Israel and anti-Iran, Milei recently emphasized that Argentina had designated Iran’s Revolutionary Guard and the Quds Force as terrorist organizations and had “expelled the chargé d’affaires of the Iranian regime.”

Close behind is Colombia’s new president, Abelardo de la Espriella, who has carried out an explicit strategic shift toward Washington and Israel, including Colombia’s incorporation into the US-led security architecture and the recognition of Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights.

Chilean President José Antonio Kast also backed the US-Israeli attack on Iran. “Chile must always be an ally of the nations that promote freedom and democracy,” he declared.

Ecuador and Bolivia have called for a diplomatic solution to the conflict, but neither government has openly challenged the US offensive against Iran.

In Brazil, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who heads one of the few surviving “Pink Tide” governments in Latin America, is favored to finish first in the first round of the October 4 presidential election. He has made limited calls for a diplomatic solution in the Middle East. However, the election could lead to a runoff between Lula and Flávio Bolsonaro, son of former President Jair Bolsonaro and the candidate favored by Trump.

During the presidential campaign, Flávio Bolsonaro has attacked Lula’s position on Iran as unacceptable and advocated unconditional alignment with Washington and Israel.

Latin American ruling class lines up with US war drive

As the European NATO countries and Canada raise their military budgets toward 5 percent of GDP, important sections of the South American ruling classes are making increasingly clear their willingness to join the global expansion of war.

The calls to “defend democracy” and the accusations that Iran is promoting violence conceal far more fundamental relations: the historic economic, political and military dependence of the Latin American bourgeoisie on US imperialism. For more than a century, Washington has regarded Latin America as its sphere of influence and has repeatedly resorted to military interventions, coups, dictatorships and economic sanctions to defend its interests.

This year makes particularly clear that NATO’s war against Russia in Ukraine, the genocide in Gaza and the US-Israeli war against Iran are not isolated conflicts. They are part of the breakdown of the world order established after World War II and of an increasingly open struggle over markets, raw materials, trade routes and geostrategic positions.

At the center of this process is the growing confrontation between the United States and China. The enormous and increasingly unsustainable US public debt, which exceeds $40 trillion, together with growing threats to the dollar’s position as the principal international currency, are driving Washington’s efforts to contain China, an emerging economic power that already rivals the United States in important fields of technology, industry and science.

It is precisely this confrontation that places Peru at the center of conflicting global strategic interests. The Chancay megaport, built with decisive Chinese capital participation, is conceived as a major commercial connection point between South America and Asia. Potentially linked to transcontinental land corridors, it could considerably reduce transportation times and costs between South America’s principal productive centers and China.

For this reason, Chancay has become one of the principal points of friction between Washington and Beijing in South America.

Representatives of US imperialism, including Marco Rubio, Pete Hegseth and J.D. Vance, have repeatedly warned Latin American governments against the growing Chinese presence, accusing Beijing of unfair trade practices, corruption, espionage and the use of strategic infrastructure for political and potentially military purposes. In the case of Chancay, sections of the US political and military establishment have even raised the danger that the port could acquire a dual-use character and eventually serve the Chinese navy.

Washington’s accusations about the Chinese threat to international supply chains are particularly hypocritical. It is Trump’s tariff policy, together with the growing use of economic sanctions and trade controls, that is deliberately fracturing global production and trade chains.

Nor is there any historical basis for presenting the United States as the defender of Latin American sovereignty against supposed foreign aggression. For nearly two centuries, the principal interventionist military power in Latin America has been the United States. In the Mexican-American War of 1846–48, Washington seized from Mexico an immense territory that today comprises California, Nevada and Utah, as well as parts of Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado and Wyoming. This was followed by innumerable military interventions and Washington-backed coups throughout Latin America and the Caribbean.

Fujimori’s subordination to Washington also has deep roots in her government’s internal crisis. Since she assumed the presidency, killings linked to extortion have continued out of control, crime has become a growing source of discontent and rising fuel and food prices have provoked social conflicts. At the same time, Fujimori is having difficulty imposing her will on the new bicameral Congress.

Unlike during the 2016–2026 period, when she exercised considerable influence over Congress through Fuerza Popular and her long-established political connections, the newly elected legislature is composed largely of new faces, many of them politically unknown to her and beyond her direct control. Her project of governing through “states of emergency” and expanding the role of the Armed Forces therefore also faces significant obstacles within Congress itself.

Fujimori therefore seeks US backing not only against China and in foreign policy, but also as support for a government preparing to confront growing social opposition within Peru itself. The use of the Armed Forces as an instrument of internal control and Peru’s alignment with the US offensive abroad are two aspects of the same process.

The breaking of relations with Iran must be understood in this context. It is neither an isolated diplomatic decision nor a sudden concern on Fujimori’s part for Iranian democracy. It is a political declaration directed primarily at Washington: in the face of the growing confrontation between the United States and China and the expansion of war in the Middle East, the Peruvian government is offering its services to US imperialism.