[CTC] State Department official: Trump administration ending APEP

[Arthur Stamoulis]

State Department official: Trump administration ending APEP
By Jason Asenso, Inside U.S. Trade
February 14, 2025 at 5:09 PM
 
The State Department has ended the Biden administration’s pursuit of the Americas Partnership for Economic Prosperity and will instead seek to revamp an initiative from Trump’s first term aimed at boosting investment in the region, a department official tells Inside U.S. Trade.
 
State’s Special Envoy for Latin America Mauricio Claver-Carone said in an email that “there’s nothing to continue with APEP, as it was a series of endless dialogues without concrete measures.” Claver-Carone is developing State’s “post-APEP strategy,” a department spokesperson noted.
 
“We have had significant bilateral dialogues with countries in the Americas since Day One pursuing and obtaining concrete outcomes,” Claver-Carone said. “We will explore new initiatives that deliver actual results.”
 
Accordingly, State will look to engage the region through “América Crece 2.0,” Claver-Carone said, referring to an initiative begun during Trump’s first term that was aimed at spurring energy and infrastructure investment in Latin America and the Caribbean.
 
América Crece 2.0, along with a “revamped” U.S. International Development Finance Corporation, can “focus on strategic investments that further the national interests of the United States, consistent with President Trump’s vision for a new golden age for America,” Claver-Carone added.
 
The U.S. in 2018 launched América Crece to “catalyze private sector investment” by helping countries “improve their regulatory frameworks and procurement structures” so their projects could qualify for certain types of loans, according to answers to frequently asked questions issued by State in April 2020. The Trump administration signed América Crece memoranda of understanding with eight Latin American countries, including Chile, Colombia, Ecuador and Panama, it added. All four later joined APEP.
 
APEP was the Biden’s administration’s primary economic development initiative for the Western Hemisphere, which President Biden announced in June 2022 at the ninth Summit of the Americas in Los Angeles. A June 2022 White House fact sheet said APEP would bolster Western Hemisphere supply chains, “deepen our economic cooperation” and “tackle the climate crisis by growing climate-related industries that will give rise to high-quality jobs,” among other objectives.
 
The U.S. in January 2023 announced APEP’s 11 other partner countries and later that year hosted APEP leaders at the White House, where the parties established partnership tracks covering trade, finance and foreign affairs.
 
That leaders’ meeting was delayed several times and was “supposed to have happened in June, in July, in August, in September, and October, and finally happen[ed] in November,” Biden's Americas adviser Chris Dodd said at the time.
 
Then-Under Secretary of State for Economic Growth, Energy and the Environment Jose Fernandez in early 2023 acknowledged APEP was “a little bit behind” but said the U.S. hoped to “complete” the initiative that year.
 
APEP leaders were scheduled to meet again this spring in Costa Rica. Last year, the parties held ministerial-level meetings covering each of the initiative’s three tracks, in addition to several lower-level meetings. The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative steered the trade track, while the Treasury and State departments led the finance and foreign affairs tracks, respectively.
 
Lawmakers from both parties have long characterized APEP’s progress as slow. Some lawmakers, especially Republicans, criticized the Biden administration’s decision to avoid market-access discussion in APEP, as well as in the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework for Prosperity -- a similar initiative that Trump, as a candidate, said he would end. -- Jason Asenso (jasenso at iwpnews.com <mailto:jasenso at iwpnews.com>)

Arthur Stamoulis
Citizens Trade Campaign
(202) 494-8826




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