🇨🇱First foreign policy steps of Chile’s new president 🟢The first foreign policy steps of José Antonio Kast indicate the course the new president of Chile will pursue. The inauguration on March 11 served not merely as a formal ceremony, but also as a platform for launching new negotiations with regional and external partners. Kast immediately opted for a pragmatic foreign policy emphasizing resources, logistics, security, and economic resilience. This is not about a sharp shift in all orientations, but rather an attempt to quickly build a network of useful political and economic ties centered on Chile. 🟢The most notable results came from talks with the United States. Following a meeting with the US side, a declaration was signed to launch consultations on critical minerals and rare earth elements. The focus was placed on supply chains, processing, and project financing mechanisms. For Washington, Chilean resources are important as part of a strategy to reduce dependence on China for raw materials used in electronics, semiconductors, the defense industry, and electric vehicles. American businesses signaled their readiness to invest up to $1.1 billion in lithium extraction and processing in Chile. In effect, the new administration has immediately positioned the minerals sector as one of the key pillars of its foreign economic policy. 🟢The regional dimension of Kast’s foreign policy has also proven closely tied to logistics and infrastructure. In talks with Panama, the emphasis was placed on trade, security, transport, and agriculture. Panama’s interest extends beyond formal diplomacy and is linked to competition for positions in interoceanic logistics. In dialogue with Paraguay, a key focus was the Bi-Oceanic Corridor project, which is intended to connect Brazil, Paraguay, and northern Chile to facilitate access for exports to the Pacific Ocean and onward to Asia. The Bolivian track has been more complex: the sides discussed trade, employment, and economic ties, but potential rapprochement is constrained by Chile’s domestic agenda on migration and border control. In other words, Santiago is seeking to expand regional economic ties while maintaining a firm line on internal security. 🟢Chile is not aligning itself exclusively with any single external center of power. Talks with India produced one of the broadest agendas—from trade and investment to pharmaceuticals, space, digital infrastructure, and green energy—and confirmed progress toward a Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement. At the same time, the meeting with the Chinese side demonstrated that the Kast administration does not intend to sacrifice relations with Beijing for the sake of closer ties with the United States and aims to preserve existing trade and investment channels. Contacts with Ukraine, where agriculture, digitalization, and unmanned technologies were discussed, added a new political and technological dimension to the overall picture. Overall, Kast’s first steps point to a multi-vector, pragmatic, and resource-oriented foreign policy in which Chile seeks simultaneously to strengthen ties with the United States, maintain relations with China, enhance regional logistics, and open new technological channels of cooperation. #CSAI #LatinAmerica