How Can the U.S. Condemn Nicaragua's Dictator While Propping up His Robust Economy?
How Can the U.S. Condemn Nicaragua's Dictator While Propping up His Robust Economy?
“It’s untenable to have a free-trade agreement with the Nicaraguan regime right now,” said AS/COA's Eric Farnsworth to the Miami Herald
Here is a little-known fact that deserves a lot more attention after Nicaraguan dictator Daniel Ortega’s decision to deport 222 political prisoners and, alongside another 92 opposition figures, strip them of their nationality: The regime has been bolstered by a boom in Nicaraguan exports to the United States.
Despite Ortega’s brutal repression of the peaceful 2018 demonstrations that left more than 300 dead, his fraudulent 2021 re-election and his decision to deprive leading opposition figures of their nationality, Nicaragua has benefited from record exports to the United States in recent years. […]
Eric Farnsworth, head of the Washington office of the Council of the Americas business association and a former State Department official dealing with Nicaragua, is among those who believe it’s time to suspend Nicaragua from CAFTA.
“It’s untenable to have a free-trade agreement with the Nicaraguan regime right now,” Farnsworth told me. “Ortega knows that the United States is not ready to take strong actions against him, so he continues to radicalize.”
Farnsworth added that it’s ironic that the United States keeps Nicaragua as a free-trade partner while it denies such privileged status to friendly countries such as Uruguay and Ecuador. “That’s bizarre,” he said. […]
