How can the U.S. condemn Nicaragua’s dictator while propping up his robust economy? | Opinion

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.

Nicaraguan sales to America soared from $3.2 billion in 2017 to a record $5.7 billion in 2022, according to U.S. Census data. To put that in perspective: Nicaragua’s exports to the United States rose 78% over the past six years.

No wonder Ortega does not seem to lose sleep over criticism that he is one of the world’s worst human-rights violators. Nicaragua’s economy has been doing well — thanks, largely, to the United States

I interviewed Ortega in Nicaragua in 2018 and asked whether he minded being called a dictator. He responded that he didn’t mind: “I’ve been called many things. I have learned not to be bothered.”

The Biden administration ramped up sanctions against Ortega’s regime after he arrested the country’s top opposition hopefuls running for president and rigged the 2021 elections to re-elect himself for a fourth consecutive term.

Last year, the Biden administration announced possible sanctions on Nicaragua’s gold sales, slightly reduced Nicaraguan sugar imports and threatened to impose other targeted trade restrictions. It also added 500 Nicaraguan officials and their families to a list of foreign officials subject to U.S. visa restrictions.

Under the 2006 CAFTA agreement, signed shortly before Ortega took office, Nicaragua benefits from a free-trade deal with the United States. Nicaraguan exports to the U.S. market — including textiles, cigars and meat — now account for about half of the country’s total exports, according to U.S. State Department figures.

The United States also accounts for 67% of Nicaragua’s family remittances sent from abroad, U.S. figures show. In 2021, such remittances reached 1.4 billion, or 11% of Nicaragua’s GDP, U.S. figures show.

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.

But most Nicaragua watchers in Washington counter that expelling or suspending Nicaragua from CAFTA would be a “nuclear option” measure that would cause a humanitarian disaster in the country. Tens of thousands of Nicaraguan workers would lose their jobs.

U.S. officials fear that massive layoffs would further increase the exodus of Nicaraguan undocumented migrants to the United States, which recently reached record levels.

But the time has come for the United States to step up targeted economic sanctions on Nicaragua.

The current U.S. visa sanctions to Nicaraguan officials are clearly not putting enough pressure on the Ortega regime. More important, it doesn’t make sense for the United States to condemn Nicaragua’s dictatorship, while propping up the economy that keeps it alive.

Ortega may not give a damn about what the international community thinks about him, but he cares about his country’s economy and getting enough income to buy votes in his fraudulent elections.

Unless Washington slaps economic sanctions on specific Nicaraguan industries and business leaders tied to his regime, Ortega will continue violate the rules of human rights and democracy. And Nicaragua will continue to be — as strange as it sounds — an anti-American regime that is being economically supported by the United States.

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