Nicaragua: Daniel Ortega's dictatorship allows China to further expand its power in the region

China continues to expand its influence in the Americas. Peru recently allowed Beijing to build and inaugurate a megaport, and now Xi Jinping's regime will build similar facilities off the coast of Nicaragua after receiving authorization from Daniel Ortega's dictatorship.

This week, a representative of the Chinese company CAMC, controlled by Beijing, and Nicaraguan Minister of Transport and Infrastructure Óscar Mojica agreed, in Managua, on the construction of a deep water port.

The deal was reached during the XVII China-Latin America and the Caribbean Business Summit. No details of the agreement were disclosed, although Laureano Ortega Murillo, advisor on trade and international cooperation to the Nicaraguan regime and son of the dictator, assured that this cooperation "will help to eradicate poverty" in the country, in addition to "generating employment and creating prosperity", according to a report by Infobae.

'The alternative' to the Panama Canal

Ortega cites the problems that have arisen in the Panama Canal in recent times, which have hindered commercial transit in the region, to justify his authorization of the agreement with Xi Jinping's regime.

"There should be an alternative, and we have the alternative here in Nicaragua, and there I show it to you. You [addressing Chinese businessmen] know that every day it is more complicated to pass through Panama and well, this is the alternative," Ortega said in statements collected by Agencia EFE. In addition, the dictator assured that "even U.S. businesses would be interested in investing in this canal, because they do enormous business and need a fluid transit through the maritime routes."

Apart from this work, the Nicaraguan dictatorship also allowed other projects to go ahead thanks to agreements with other Chinese-owned companies: an Intelligent Logistics Center, a new Eastern Market and a wind power plant.