A man angling to be the “Trump of Peru” has drawn the ire of a former Republican U.S. House committee chairman over a legal fight that landed the City of Lima in hot water.
The growing controversy involving a company advised by former U.S. Rep. Connie Mack IV (R-Fla.) might also derail Lima Mayor Rafael Lopez Aliaga’s plans to get in the good graces of Republicans close to President Donald Trump.
Mack, a Trump ally who chaired the House Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere until 2013, fired off a public letter to Lopez Aliaga on Tuesday, accusing him of peddling false information that asset management giant Brookfield is under investigation by the federal government.
The Lima mayor has tried to “stoke baseless media speculation that Brookfield somehow is the subject of an investigation by U.S. authorities,” wrote Mack, who is identified in the letter as an advisor to Brookfield.
“Brookfield is not aware of and has no reason to believe that it is the subject of any investigation by U.S. authorities,” Mack wrote.
Lopez Aliaga’s municipal government seized investments in the Rutas de Lima toll road complex held by Brookfield, the NYSE-listed firm, which has close to $1 trillion under management.
Brookfield has already won three rounds in court against Lopez Aliaga, after arbitral tribunals found that he unilaterally breached a concession contract held by Brookfield to operate the toll roads. The courts rejected the Municipality of Lima’s attempts to link Brookfield to actions by the previous owner of Rutas de Lima, the Brazilian construction company Odebrecht, which has been plagued by bribery scandals.
Brookfield is now seeking to collect $2.7 billion in arbitral awards.
The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia sided with Brookfield in March 2024, ruling that Lopez Aliaga’s side proffered a “ramshackle record” of evidence to convince the court to vacate the awards.
Mack also sought to correct the record on “falsehoods” he attributed to Lopez Aliaga and his legal team that Andrew Weissman, the Jenner & Block attorney targeted by Trump for his work on the Robert Mueller investigation, was linked to Brookfield.
Weissman “has never worked for Brookfield in any capacity,” Mack stated, adding that, “Jenner & Block does not represent Brookfield.”
Mack also wrote, “The Municipality of Lima has been spreading falsehoods designed to smear a highly respected NYSE and TSX-listed company.”
Lopez Aliaga won a hotly contested race for mayor of Lima in 2022, defeating retired military officer Daniel Urresti.
Lopez Aliaga studied industrial engineering before landing in banking. He founded Peruvian Corp, a securities enterprise, and Grupo Acres, a hotel and railway finance company.
He is head of the conservative Popular Renovation party, and hopes to succeed President Dina Boluarte, who herself succeeded disgraced former President Pedro Castillo in December 2022. Castillo attempted to dissolve the national Congress hours before it was scheduled to deliberate on his impeachment. He had no military support, however, and was ultimately impeached in an emergency vote 101-6 just hours after his dramatic announcements.
Political experts see trouble in Republican circles for the Lima mayor by drawing fire from a Trump ally like Mack.
“This kind of blowback will complicate Lopez Aliaga’s image among Republicans,” Eduardo Gamarra, professor of Latin American politics at Florida International University, told Inside Sources. “If Lopez Aliaga is trying to deceive people close to the White House, it will cost him credibility.”
