Definition of Pacific Alliance

In international relations, nations establish treaties and agreements to jointly defend their interests. The strength of a country is measured from about resources their own and, at the same time, because of their ability to ally themselves with other countries. In the Latin American context there are several supranational institutions and one of them is the Pacific Alliance.

The member states are Chile, Colombia, Mexico and Peru. Their alliance began in 2011 at the initiative of the President of Colombia Juan Manuel Santos.

The main objective is the economic growth of its member states. It should be noted that the four founding states account for fifty percent of all exports in the context of Latin America.

One of the first measures adopted after the signing of the agreement was the elimination of visas for all citizens of the integrated and participating countries. Currently, the authorities of each member country exchange information to prevent crimes, enhance the exchange of university students and facilitate technological exchange.

An organization open to new incorporations

In recent years, the Pacific Alliance has incorporated new members in quality of observers, such as Finland, Israel, Morocco or Singapore. Likewise, there are countries that participate as collaborators, for example the United States, Panama, Canada, Germany or Italy. This opening reveals the will not excluding of the organism.

The role of the Pacific Alliance in international geopolitics

From the point of view of geopolitics, was founded to establish a counterweight with two geographically close entities: the Bolivarian Alliance for America (ALBA) and the Southern Common Market (Mercosur).

In recent years there has been a process of trade liberalization. In this general context, bilateral agreements are promoted among its members in order to expand their markets. In this sense, it must be taken into account that Chile, Colombia, Peru and Mexico have an interest in boost their exports in Asia and by establishing an alliance between them their export capacity is older.

The challenges of this supranational body are several:

1) gradually reduce tariffs between member states,

2) improve infrastructure related to export, especially ports,

3) create common strategies to improve issues such as self competence, intellectual property, labor regulation or possible commercial disputes and

4) attract investments foreign.

All of these challenges have one overarching goal: that the population of this region enjoy higher levels of economic well-being.