Ecuador moves from vaccine diplomacy to commercial diplomacy, points to the Pacific Alliance

The first challenge of the new Foreign Minister of Ecuador, Juan Carlos Holguín, will specify a long-awaited treaty with Mexico that enables access to the Pacific alliance, within a new phase in diplomacy focused on the commercial opening of the country.

Appointed with the intention of promoting the “new image” of Ecuador, according to the president, Guillermo Lasso, Minister Holguín, 38, comes from the private sector and his objective will be to promote a renewed diplomacy based on commercial and technological interests.

“The strengthening of our foreign policy seeks to promote trade agreements and open the economy to the world. But also to continue promoting foreign investment and creating internal conditions to generate more employment, ”Lasso said at the chancellor’s inauguration ceremony held on Monday afternoon.

Agreements with Mexico and the US

And its first mission in that direction is to complete the negotiation for an agreement with Mexico, the last door that remains to be opened to become a full member of the Pacific Alliance, given that Ecuador has trade agreements with the rest of its partners. economic club: Chile, Peru and Colombia.

Despite the political will of both governments, the dialogue has yet to overcome some discrepancies on various products, including shrimp and bananas, sensitive for Mexico, and on the Ecuadorian side, automobiles, metalworking and textiles.

In December, the Minister of Foreign Trade, Julio José Prado, announced that a new impulse was expected this January at the presidential summit of the Alliance in Colombia, to which Ecuador was invited, and in which they will try to advance in two parallel lanes , on the one hand, with Mexico and, on the other, with the organization itself.

Another agreement that the Ecuadorian government tries to promote in the short term is with the United States, much more difficult, but with which the talks continue.

This January or February the Trade and Investment Council of both countries should meet at the highest level, an appointment that, in principle, is scheduled in Guayaquil.

Lasso also wants to give a boost to relations with Israel, where he intends to open a technology office through the Alliance for Entrepreneurship and Innovation (AEI) shared with Colombia, and also seeks to promote ties with Russia, other countries and blocs.

From “vaccine” to “commercial” diplomacy

In the inauguration ceremony held at the Carondelet Palace, Lasso highlighted about the new minister that “he represents the face of this new Ecuador open to the world: young, dynamic, enterprising, committed to innovation and technological advances.”

Holguín for his part recalled the main slogan of the Executive of “More Ecuador in the world and more world in Ecuador”, which implies – he said – “a modern diplomacy” and “dynamic”, “a policy of international cooperation with full openness to the world without ideological distinctions, but with a pragmatic look ”and focused on more trade agreements with the largest number of countries.

Lasso’s henchman, the new minister had been an ad-honorem itinerant ambassador for strategic issues, especially for the so-called “vaccine diplomacy” with which Ecuador obtained more than 20 million doses against COVID-19 in just a few months and with which he was able to start the economic reactivation.

Born in Quito, Holguín also served as presidential advisor and was at the forefront of the transition of government, and has known the private sector from within since he was 18 years old.

Linked to the official movement Creando Oportunidades (CREO), led by the president, the now minister had his first political attempt in the municipal elections of 2019, when he ran for mayor of Quito and was in fifth position.

Regularization of Venezuelans

Another of the immediate objectives of the also Minister of Human Mobility will be Lasso’s electoral promise to regularize Venezuelan migration in the country, and make it part of his incipient program of economic and social development.

“Today we are a host country for migrants and the tragedies that they experience in each of their countries force us to regularize them immediately,” said Holguín.

According to different sources and studies, between 450,000 and 600,000 Venezuelan migrants who arrived in the last five years live in Ecuador, of which only a part were regularized in a plan of the previous Lenín Moreno government.

For this reason, many work from an irregular condition and the pandemic represented a severe blow to their livelihoods.