The propaganda of the Ortega-Murillo dictatorship is heavily advertising the arrival on Sunday of a supposedly “important” Chinese delegation, made up of public officials and businessmen from that communist regime, who are coming to “strengthen” trade relations between the countries, without giving details of what trade issues they will address or when the results of the meetings and visits will begin to be seen.
The “official business delegation” from communist China arrived in Managua on the evening of Sunday, August 18, and was received by the dictator’s son-advisor, Laureano “El Chigüin” Ortega Murillo, who in his welcome speech dedicated himself to flattering the Chinese but gave no information on when the results of the much-publicized Free Trade Agreement with China would begin to be seen.
According to Chigüin Ortega Murillo, who serves as his father’s advisor on Investment, Trade and International Cooperation, the group of Chinese, made up of 32 people, including eight officials from the Ministry of Industry and Trade and 24 businessmen “are coming to work with our country, with our companies, with our Nicaraguan colleagues, to promote the export of Nicaraguan products to the market of the People’s Republic of China.”
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The son of dictators Ortega and Murillo reported that the group of Asians will be working with several government institutions such as the Central Bank of Nicaragua (BCN), the Ministry of Development, Industry and Commerce (Mific), and the Secretariat of Investments and Exports.
Chigüín also assured that in work meetings he will “analyze and review the great potential that exists to promote the export of Nicaraguan products to China and also promote Chinese investments in Nicaragua, in order to export food products, products of all kinds to that great market.”
Ortega-Murillo’s statements make it clear that, despite the fact that the much-publicized FTA with China has been in force for almost seven months, they are still in the “analysis and review” phase to decide which products could be exported to the Asian giant.
FTA with China will not be beneficial for Nicaragua
The economist and opposition leader exiled by the dictatorship, Juan Sebastián Chamorro, analyzes that the FTA signed by the Ortega regime with the Chinese communist government will not really be able to displace or replace the US market, where most Nicaraguan exports go.
“A trade agreement with China will not have the same effects as the FTA with the United States and Central America,” said the economist and former political prisoner.
For his part, Juan Diego Barberena, a political leader in exile, also analyzes that the FTA between the Nicaraguan dictatorship and the Chinese communist dictatorship is a “Chinese tale” since there is no concrete evidence that it is fully developed and beneficial for Nicaragua.
“There is not a single objective proof that the free trade agreement signed by the Ortega-Murillo dictatorship with China will generate economic benefits for the country, or that it will be greater than the benefits Nicaragua has with the United States,” Barberena agreed.
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For the exiled opposition leader, what the dictatorship is selling is an illusion and the rest is “demagoguery by Laureano Ortega and his dictator parents,” he said.
Barberena said that, on the contrary, the benefits that the Ortega-Murillo regime is granting to Chinese products and businessmen would be harming internal trade and small Nicaraguan merchants who are being displaced by the numerous Chinese stores that are emerging in Nicaragua, which local merchants cannot share.
“I continue to believe that this trade relationship (China-Nicaragua) is eminently political, not economic, not commercial, it has a geopolitical and strategic background of Chinese interest, of effects and reflections of the imperial policies of the Chinese,” accused the opposition leader.
Nicaragua has a trade deficit, and the main partner remains the US
In the third quarter of 2024, Nicaragua presents a significant trade deficit amounting to 630.4 million dollars, that is, it is 19.0 percent higher than that registered in the same period of 2023, according to the BCN Foreign Trade statistics.
The same BCN statistics indicate that the United States is Nicaragua’s main trading partner, and that the majority of Nicaraguan exports are directed towards that market. China does not even appear among Nicaragua’s trading partner countries.
