Costa Rica Shelves CPTPP Bid Amid Election Pressure

Costa Rica’s government shelved its bid to join the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership after concerns about the 2028 municipal elections, according to four people linked to the accession process. The decision came from the country’s top political offices, while agricultural groups and municipalities in farming areas had opposed the agreement and the government had not publicly explained the reversal.

The four sources spoke to local reporters anonymously, and the government had not responded to their accounts. President Laura Fernández announced on Oct. 28 that she would shelve accession and dismissed Foreign Trade Minister Indiana Trejos the same day. The political apparatus moved quickly; the reasons behind its decision remained largely undisclosed.

Municipal ties and political pressure

At an Oct. 9 meeting at Casa Presidencial, Fernández and Rodrigo Chaves brought together 46 organizations to review the agreement. Chaves is now Minister of Finance and of the Presidency. One attendee said about 40 municipalities in agricultural areas, along with other business groups, opposed the deal. That attendee said proceeding could have jeopardized those municipalities’ ties to the ruling Pueblo Soberano party.

The sources linked the government’s reversal to the coming municipal elections, but the government had not publicly confirmed their account. Chaves defended the agreement at the meeting on free-market grounds. The competing concerns on the table were concrete: access to a wider trade bloc on one side, and political ties involving agricultural municipalities on the other.

The previous administration of Rodrigo Chaves had announced, days before the current government took office, that it had concluded negotiations on the substantive terms of Costa Rica’s entry. At the Oct. 9 meeting, Fernández asked Trejos to organize working groups with productive sectors and set Nov. 23 as the deadline to decide whether to sign the accession protocol. Some attendees described that meeting as a formality, saying the decision had already been made.

The deal, the protests, and the closed door

Agricultural groups protested outside Casa Presidencial on Oct. 9, and several organizations marched against the agreement on Nov. 3. Those protests were the visible response to a process unfolding among the president, senior officials, business groups, and organized interests. The sources did not describe the protests as determining the outcome.

The sources also raised concerns about how the negotiations were handled. One said the government’s new approach included criticism of the Foreign Trade Ministry’s negotiations and its failure to share information with business chambers. Trejos reportedly sought permission from the CPTPP’s 12 members to make the negotiated protocol public. The sources said permission was not granted, and the text has not been released.

What remains after the reversal

Costa Rica already has trade agreements with six CPTPP members: Mexico, Canada, Peru, Chile, Singapore and the United Kingdom. One source said the main additional benefit of membership would have been access to the Japanese market. With accession shelved, those existing bilateral agreements remain Costa Rica’s main framework for trade with the Asia-Pacific region.

The CPTPP has been in force since 2018 and includes Japan, Australia, New Zealand, Brunei, Chile, Mexico, Canada, Peru, Vietnam, Singapore, Malaysia and the United Kingdom. Its ministerial meeting in Vietnam was scheduled for Nov. 23 to 27, and would have been Costa Rica’s first as a participant. Costa Rica will not attend as an accession participant after shelving its bid.

Chaves publicly backed the reversal on Oct. 29. In a government video, he said he fully supported Fernández’s decision, while noting that he had authorized the Foreign Trade Ministry to begin negotiations because membership could provide access to a market of about 600 million consumers. The Presidency had not answered questions about the sources’ accounts by Nov. 3, and the government had not publicly explained the reasons for the reversal beyond Fernández’s Oct. 28 announcement.