OTTAWA — Canada can defend rules-based worldwide commerce and resist strain from superpowers by working extra with the Americas, shoring up provide chains and strengthening financial ties, Costa Rica’s commerce minister mentioned on a latest go to to Ottawa.
“We share the identical imaginative and prescient of the kind of world that we want to reside in,” Manuel Tovar Rivera mentioned in an interview with The Canadian Press. “Canada has monumental alternatives in our hemisphere.”
Costa Rica is on monitor to turn into the primary Central American state to hitch the Complete and Progressive Settlement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, or CPTPP, a buying and selling bloc of 12 international locations throughout the Pacific Rim, North and South America that may quickly embrace the U.Ok.
Prime Minister Mark Carney has positioned the bloc as a world alliance that may work alongside the European Union towards Chinese language and American coercion — a part of a technique he outlined in January in a much-publicized speech on the World Financial Discussion board in Davos, Switzerland.
Costa Rica, a rustic of simply 5 million roughly the dimensions of Nova Scotia, is a vital companion for Ottawa on initiatives like feminist approaches to financial development and selling anticorruption practices.
In 2021, with Canada’s assist, Costa Rica turned the primary Central American nation to hitch the Group for Financial Co-operation and Improvement, or OECD, a gaggle of 38 wealthy democracies. The nation is powered virtually fully by renewables and hydroelectricity.
Costa Rica’s transfer to hitch the CPTPP bloc may develop commerce with Canada in companies, funding and authorities procurement, which weren’t a part of the bilateral settlement each international locations signed in 2002.
That might imply extra Canadian exports of wheat and sugar to Costa Rica, in response to an business session led by Ottawa. It may additionally result in a lift in Canadian tourism.
However becoming a member of the bloc can be about making an attempt to uphold world rules-based programs, Tovar Rivera mentioned.
U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariffs have hit international locations around the globe arduous — particularly these like Costa Rica and Canada which depend on American funding and exports to the U.S. Virtually half of Costa Rica’s exports go to the U.S., whereas the U.S. accounts for greater than two-thirds of Canada’s complete exports.
Costa Rica has courted Chinese language funding with blended success, with a promised freeway enlargement and oil refinery going through authorized disputes. Beijing has threatened to droop different initiatives after Costa Rica sought to bar China’s state-owned telecom Huawei from 5G contracts, citing cybersecurity dangers.
Even earlier than Trump returned to workplace, the World Commerce Group was hamstrung as a result of U.S. refusing to permit the appointment of dispute-resolution judges and China’s non-market insurance policies undermining the physique’s guidelines. Each international locations are broadly blamed for years-long WTO reform processes falling flat.
“There are various sinners who’ve dedicated many sins,” mentioned Tovar Rivera. “We’ll proceed to fail to advance the reform of the WTO if we proceed doing enterprise as normal.”
He cited Carney’s “very frank” Davos speech about rejecting hegemonic powers performing to undermine establishments just like the WTO. Tovar Rivera interpreted this as a name to reform establishments fairly than disregard them.
“The foundations-based system that we now have in place — though it may be actually improved and wishes main reform — it helps safe world peace and safety. It helps deliver folks out of poverty,” he mentioned.
Tovar Rivera argued Canada can shore up multilateralism by selling rules-based commerce and democracy with extra companions in Central and South America.
“I want to see within the close to future a Canada-Latin American agenda that we will work on, figuring out areas of mutual curiosity for co-operation, for additional engagement, for financial growth (and) additionally safety points,” he mentioned.
Tovar Rivera mentioned this would come with addressing a sequence of regional points — which occur to be ones Washington has made central to its insurance policies for the Americas.
“We all know that there’s a actuality on the market. The large focus of the worldwide discussions will likely be … the safety and resilience of provide chains, the way to fight illicit commerce, drug trafficking, unlawful migration and all these vices that come together with it,” he mentioned.
He mentioned that doesn’t imply abandoning local weather change or feminism — values the Trump administration has rejected. “They are going to proceed to be extra related as time goes by,” he mentioned.
Tovar Rivera additionally argued international locations in Latin America want good governance and financial development so as to stem migration flows. A richer, extra democratic area means fewer asylum claimants fleeing to different international locations, together with the U.S. and Canada, he mentioned.
He additionally argued stronger provide chains inside the Americas would assist restrict the danger of highly effective international locations manipulating financial circumstances.
“Crucial factor is … how can these which can be keen to maneuver ahead achieve this, with out others making an attempt to impede or impede that development,” he mentioned.
The Canadian Council for the Americas made the identical level final November in a report that urged Ottawa to grab on the financial and diplomatic potential of South and Central America, largely through the use of present relationships and commerce offers.
The report mentioned that requires a shift past considering of Latin America as a gaggle of commodity markets, and calls for as an alternative a deal with constructing processing capability for agricultural items, promoting Canadian experience in cybersecurity and beefing up policing at Canadian ports used to visitors narcotics.
This report by The Canadian Press was first revealed March 23, 2026.
Dylan Robertson, The Canadian Press