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El Salvador’s National Assembly Ratifies Economic Accords with China

El Salvador’s National Assembly, in which President Nayib Bukele’s New Ideas party now holds a majority after sweeping the February elections, last night finally ratified the economic development accords signed between El Salvador and China when Bukele visited that nation in December 2019. Opposition legislators in the previous Assembly had blocked it. Under the agreement, the People’s Republic of China will help build a new port pier in El Salvador, a much-needed water-treatment system for the capital, San Salvador, a world class library, and a stadium, and provide a $500 million grant to help pay for these public investments. “US$500 million in non-refundable public investment with no strings attached,” Bukele tweeted.

Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs Julie Chung warned Bukele personally in a tweet: “Mr. President, nothing from China comes without conditions.” Could this be the beginning of warnings about the Chinese “grant trap"?

Early the next morning, China’s Ambassador to El Salvador and Salvadoran cabinet officials jointly greeted the arrival of another half-million doses of Sinovac’s CoronaVac vaccine, bringing to 2 million doses the vaccines supplied by China to the country of 6.4 million.

Bukele and allies have emphasized that this is what “allies” and “friends” do—not like the conditions the Biden administration is piling on the region. The only thing the U.S. has offered El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala is a new State Department report issued yesterday identifying “corrupt” officials and politicians who will face reprisals.

For his part, Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández reiterated yesterday that his government is negotiating sales of vaccines with China, Taiwan, “and what the U.S. has promised us.” The State Department’s Director for Central American Affairs Patrick Ventrell visited Honduras after President Hernández first raised publicly that Honduras, which still has diplomatic ties with Taiwan, is considering opening a trade office in China, in order to facilitate the purchase of Chinese vaccines. U.S. official Ventrell delivered an order: “The relationship between Honduras and Taiwan has been very important and it should continue like that.”

Few in Honduras appear to be listening. The Honduran mayors who went to El Salvador last week for vaccines, announced this week that they will return to El Salvador next week, to meet with the Chinese Ambassador to El Salvador on securing vaccines for all the municipalities in the country.