MANAGUA — The Daniel Ortega regime inaugurated this Thursday a direct trade route with China to expand economic exchange between the two countries, an official media outlet reported.
The announcement was made in the Pacific port of Corinto, about 150 km northwest of Managua, where the Panamanian-flagged merchant ship Sunny Fortune arrived on Wednesday, the first of three monthly ships planned in a trade agreement with China.
The son of the dictator and Rosario Murillo, Ortega’s wife and vice president, Laureano Ortega Murillo, whom his parents named presidential advisor in charge of relations between Nicaragua and China, led the event together with Chinese and Nicaraguan officials and stated that “it is a transcendental event” for the Central American country.
“This is a great achievement for our country and we will continue working so that this is only the beginning of much more, more frequent, more operations,” said Ortega’s son, quoted on the El19digital website.
He added that, in addition to opening the route, the Sunny Fortune transported machinery for the construction of the Punta Huete international airport, north of Managua, which the Sandinista regime granted to the Chinese company CAMC.
In December 2023, China and Nicaragua agreed to elevate their relations to the level of a “strategic partnership,” following a call between Ortega and Chinese President Xi Jinping. The two countries signed a Free Trade Agreement in January.
In 2021, Managua established relations with China after breaking with Taiwan, considered by Beijing to be its own territory whose control it must regain, even by force if necessary.
Since then, the world’s second-largest economy has supported the Sandinista dictatorship, which has been in power for the second time since January 2007 and continues to govern through electoral fraud. The regime faces sanctions from the United States and European countries following the 2018 protests against Ortega, which left more than 300 dead at the hands of the police and paramilitary groups in collusion with the army.
Source: With information from AP
