Latin America’s development bank has become the latest battleground in the fight for global influence between the US and China, after its chief warned the lender had helped Beijing boost its presence in the region.

Mauricio Claver-Carone, the recently-installed head of the Inter-American Development Bank, said Washington had allowed China to gain an economic foothold in Latin America by underfunding the lender for years and turning a blind eye to how Beijing had used its membership of the institution to win a disproportionate share of contracts.

“For decades, the US, across the political spectrum, has undervalued the IDB,” Claver-Carone said in an interview with the Financial Times. “As a result, China filled that financial vacuum to their advantage. Hopefully, that lesson has now been learned.”