This commentary concerns the significant opportunities which the global economy’s current nearshoring trend offers the Latin American and Caribbean (LAC) region owing to a US–China decoupling. Yet the region, generally, is woefully unprepared. The state of the LAC will make or break the peoples’ attempts to exploit the new potential to better themselves. Yet the short‐termist myopia and public policy neglect of politicians is the greatest obstacle to the kind of development the region needs the most: high‐quality FDI enabling educated innovators to push LAC up the rank of global value chains; or else it will be trapped in middle income, at best.