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Mexico, China and the US priorities of Ecuador’s new trade diplomacy

China, the United States and Mexico are among the first targets of the new “trade diplomacy”Which has been undertaken by the new Ecuadorian Foreign Minister, Juan Carlos Holguín, who will have to balance between the two great superpowers.

The 38-year-old politician undertakes a diplomacy oriented towards the search for commercial agreements and founded on the vision of “More Ecuador in the world and more world in Ecuador”, Campaign slogan of President Guillermo Lasso.

A diplomacy in which he sees no obstacles for his country to have close alliances with two rivals such as China or the United States, and in which, he says, “the interest of Ecuador and Ecuadorians will prevail above all else.”

Mexico: the first objective

With the negotiations already started, the agreement with Mexico is crucial to gain access to the Pacific Alliance, in which Ecuador already has agreements with Chile, Peru and Colombia.

The negotiations are about 80% complete. This January will be decisive so that our Foreign Trade Ministers can complete it“Said the minister, who on Friday met in Buenos Aires with his Mexican colleague, Marcelo Ebrard, within the framework of a Celac meeting.

Asked about the other 20%, he said that the parties started the dialogue by “the coincidences“, for “focus now precisely on the divergences“, Including shrimp and bananas, from”a lot of concern” mutually.

Holguín said “understand“The position of Mexico, and assured that also Ecuador”it will be very prudent that no industry is harmed” for what “the agreement does not harm any citizen”.

Lasso henchman

An entrepreneur since he was 18 years old and a candidate for mayor of Quito in the last municipal elections, in which he finished fifth, the new minister is convinced that “the pandemic” has created a new reality.

For Lasso it has been a turning point on what diplomacy should mean for our Government and that we are in a new stage that needs much more pragmatism, innovation and agility“, Held.

His appointment as head of Ecuadorian diplomacy was part of the Quito rumor mill for two months, when he served as an itinerant ambassador ad honorem on strategic issues.

As the president’s trusted man, he participated in the so-called “vaccine diplomacy”, With which his country was able to immunize more than twelve million people in a fleeting campaign against COVID-19.

The diplomatic carom

Remember those months with “gratitude”The assistance of China, a country that Lasso, identified with the center-right, will visit in February.

More than 50% of our citizens have been vaccinated with Sinovac and Cansino, and that is also a sign of the good moment that relations with China are going through”, He stressed.

The Ecuadorian president seeks the renegotiation of a debt of more than US $ 5 billion that Ecuador has with the Asian giant, but also the starting signal for the negotiation of a free trade agreement.

This year we have a large debt payment with China and it is a debt that, we all know, was negotiated under unfavorable conditions for our country“Holguín recalled within a pragmatism that makes Americans nervous.

Since 2017, Washington has bet on Ecuador as an island in its favor in South America, with economic aid and massive political support so that the Andean country obtained billions of multilateral organizations.

And although happy with his government, Lasso’s progressive approach to Beijing arouses the suspicion of the United States.

Ecuador has to think about its interests and those of its citizens. We cannot think about the future without thinking about everyone. We have to talk to the largest number of powers in the world”, The minister justified himself when defending the new diplomatic strategy.

Strategic ally for inclusion

More so, perhaps, because the long-awaited agreement with the United States, Ecuador’s main trading partner, may take years.

We are focused on taking the concrete steps that will allow us to reach a fair trade agreement when the political situation in the United States so determines.“, Holguín argued, recognizing the titanic task and suggesting that, perhaps,”You don’t necessarily have to think of a FTA as we understood it before ”.

Both countries have scheduled a meeting to promote the preparatory protocols agreed as part of the negotiation, four of which have already been signed.

And remember that relations with Washington are at their best and should be read in their full context, as exemplified by the fact that your country has been chosen as beneficiaries of the US initiative “Rebuild a Better World (B3W)” together with Panama and Colombia. .

An initiative with which the Andean country aspires to launch development projects against the “malnutrition”, “sewerage”, “drinking water“, already “have the United States as a strategic partner with a vision of social inclusion”.

Within the new trade and innovation strategy, Ecuador also looks to Russia, Canada, Israel, and the EU -with which it already has an FTA but with which it wants a deeper relationship- and to specify the vision of achieving “the greatest number of treaties in three years ”.

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