Keiko Fujimori took office as Peru’s president on Tuesday, returning the country’s most powerful political family to power after 26 years and inheriting a geopolitical balancing act that will define her term.
Fujimori, daughter of the late strongman Alberto Fujimori who ruled in the 1990s, won the June runoff by a fraction of a percentage point, 50.1 percent to 49.9 percent. Her opponent has not conceded. She becomes Peru’s tenth president since 2016, a measure of the instability that awaits her.
Domestically, she has promised a tough-on-crime agenda: more video surveillance, stronger police presence, mega-prisons modeled on El Salvador’s. Peru has been battered by organized crime, political corruption scandals, and a revolving door of short-lived presidents.
But the biggest challenge is foreign policy. Peru has become a key battleground in US-China competition for influence in South America, and the fulcrum is a Chinese-built megaport at Chancay.
The $3.5 billion Chancay port, part of China’s Belt and Road Initiative, opened in 2024 and has already transformed trade routes. Shipping time between Peru and China has fallen from 40 to 23 days. Bilateral trade exceeded $40 billion in 2024, making China Peru’s largest trading partner by far. The United States is second at $25 billion.
Georgetown professor Michael Shifter, speaking to DW, said the US is seeking to expand its influence and that the competition between Beijing and Washington is especially evident in Peru.
Fujimori campaigned on a pro-Washington platform. She has aligned herself with Trump’s “Shield of the Americas” initiative against organized crime and signaled a tougher foreign policy stance. But she has also said she rejects automatic alignment with any power and wants a strategically balanced position.
The balancing act may prove impossible. Fujimori cannot afford to alienate China – the Chancay port enjoys broad support in Peru, and Chinese investment flows into mining, infrastructure, and energy. A break with Beijing would not be realistic, as one analyst put it.
At the same time, Trump has made clear he expects loyalty from Latin American governments. Peru’s participation in the Shield of the Americas is meant to signal that closeness, but it also risks drawing Lima deeper into Washington’s geopolitical agenda.
Fujimori’s father made his first trip to Beijing in 1991, laying the groundwork for a Sino-Peruvian relationship that now binds the country economically to China. His daughter now must manage that legacy while keeping Washington satisfied. The margin for error is narrower than the vote count that put her in office.