TRANSCRIPT:
Conference Call
Xi & Trump at Mar-a-Lago: US-China Relations and the Impact on Latin America

Wednesday, April 5, 2017
2:00 to 2:45 p.m EDT


SPEAKERS

Heraldo Muñoz
Minister of Foreign Affairs
Government of Chile

Jamie Metzl
Nonresident Senior Fellow
Brent Scowcroft Center on International Security
Atlantic Council

Introduced by

Sean Miner
Associate Director and Fellow, China – Latin America Initiative,
Adrienne Arsht Latin America Center
Atlantic Council

Introduction
Miner: Hello. Welcome, everyone. Thank you for joining us on this special conference call. My name is Sean Miner, I’m the associate director and fellow for the China, Latin-America initiative in the Adrian Arts Latin America Center at the Atlantic Council. I want to say that this call is done in conjunction with the Atlantic Council’s Brand [inaudible] Center on international security. I would want to mention up front that this call is on the record and open to the public. After the introductory remarks and questions, the participants in the call will have a chance to ask questions and I’ll give you some instructions on that a little later.
So first, I want to thank our speakers today. We have the pleasure of hosting Minister Heraldo Munoz, foreign minister of Chile since 2014. Minister Munoz was previously assistant secretary-general of the United Nations. And before that, he was assistant administrator in regional director for Latin America and the Caribbean of the United Nations Development Program. Second, we have Jamie Metzl, a non-resident senior fellow for technology and national security in the Atlantic Council’s Brent Scowcroft Center on international security. He is also senior advisor to a New York-based global investment firm. he previously served as executive vice president of the Asia Society and deputy staff director of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
We are delighted that you could join us for this very timely discussion ahead of the highly anticipated meeting between China’s President, Xi Jinping, and U.S. President, Donald Trump, beginning tomorrow at Mar-a-Lago going through Friday. The stakes are very high for this summit between the world’s two largest economies. During the campaign, China was a frequent target of President Trump, including China’s trade practices.
But more recently we have more missile launches out of North Korea, including yesterday, putting the issue of the Korean Peninsula front and center of the relationship. China, for its part, has a leader that is the most powerful and assertive Chinese leader in decades and has thrust China onto the world stage, tossing away the previous strategy of keeping to itself while amassing power. Moreover, in the fall of this year, the Chinese Communist Party is holding its twice-a-decade party congress where the future leaders of China will be chosen.
The uneven economic relationship between China and many of its trading partners has created a lot of friction. Many in Latin America China’s imports, and the region’s focused too much on commodities while their exports to Latin America crowd out domestically produce value-added goods.
President Trump has spoken out against the unbalanced trading relationship with China. Just this weekend, in the interview with the Financial Times, he said that we have to, “Tell China that we cannot continue to trade if we are going to have an unfair deal like we have now. This is an unfair deal.” This sets up the possibility for major changes in the bilateral economic relationship between China and the United States which will have global ramification. Talks with tariff currency manipulation and unequal treatment continue to be brought up.
One of the more salient trade issues early in Trump’s presidency was his move to signal the United States will no longer be part of the TPP, effectively taking a step back in terms of regional economic integration in the Asia-Pacific. This was music to China’s ears as many in China saw TPP as a way to limit China’s role in economic integration in the Asia-Pacific. This has opened a door to China to step into Latin America with a larger presence than it has ever had. Science involvement in Latin America is going rapidly in the last few years including finance trade and foreign investment, and is looking to strengthen those relationships. One month ago, Minister Munoz hosted other ministers and officials from the TPP countries plus China, South Korea, and Columbia to discuss the path forward for regional integration in the Asia-Pacific post TPP.
Now, I’m going to turn to Minister Munoz to make an opening statement and ask some follow-up questions. After, I’ll turn to Mr. Jamie Metsel to do the same. Directly following, I will open up for questions to the audience.
Mr. Minister, as you mentioned on Monday in your op-ed in the New York Times about the post-TPP world, I want to begin with a couple of questions regarding this trade meeting in Santiago last month. So what will happen to the TPP? Will the TPP go on without the United States? How will China assert itself in the region now that the US is out of the TPP? And what else is China doing in Latin America with countries there.
Please go ahead.
Minister: Well, thank you very much. Thank you very much, Sean, to The Atlantic Council, and my fellow panelists for the dialogue. Let me say, to begin, that we were very pleased as pro tempore president of the Pacific Alliance who have hosted in Chile a very high-level meeting in mid-March of all the signatories of the TPP, including also China, South Korea, and Colombia, and certainly the United States. And this was actually the first encounter of the signatory countries post the US withdrawal of the TPP.
I believe that the results were far beyond what we expected, and in fact, you have cited the NYT op-ed I wrote and that appeared yesterday in the New York Times entitled Trade Act with TPP which I think summarizes the outcomes of the meeting. I think that was a broad consensus that most trade opening and economic integration must prevail over calls of protectionism and nationalism. There was also something very important that many of the participants – high-level participants, mostly ministers – asserted that inclusive development can only be achieved through working together and that globalization cannot be stopped, but that rather that we should harness its forces to great positive outcomes in terms of poverty reduction, equality, to social and economic policy and sustainable development.
So at the meeting, in a very major way, The Pacific Alliance countries – that is Mexico, Colombia too, and Chile – agreed to begin trade negotiations abroad with Asia-Pacific partners with the aim of quickly achieving comprehensive and balanced agreements that need the high standards set by the TPP.
For example, include services access, IP rights, enhanced environmental protection, and common guidelines for e-commerce. And regarding the TPP in particular, at least 11 remaining dignitaries recognize that that was a setback. Yet, I think that we agreed that we should at least save the elements contained both in the negotiating process and in the agreement itself. That I shouldn’t set it apart from others in terms of ambition and scope.
The administrators of the other countries have agreed to continue meeting. And in fact, that there would be a meeting in Canada to exchange views on how to move forward towards seeking out integration of the Asia-Pacific through various modalities. And the results of that exercise would be discussed at a ministers trade meeting in APEC in June.
But I think there’s something important that at least if not all let me say that many emphasize and that was the principles and the disciplines contained in the TPP. That they continue to prosecute and keep parameter from future integration skills. So the idea is that in the process and negotiation with TPP, an agreement was achieved that’s sort of a first century quality agreement that sets provisions in very relevant areas like non-tariff barriers, global value change, and e-commerce, environment, labor, and transparency.  Those are important aspects.
So let me just say, what next? Well I think the Pacific Alliance countries are in the process or will be in the process soon of identifying Asia Pacific negotiating partners. In other words, what we want is for the alliance, the Pacific Alliance, to become a platform to implement the high-quality standards set by the TPP and at the same time to achieve those agreements in a relatively short period of time. At the same time we have out we have sort of a intraregional task among alliance countries to remove non-tariff barriers and an increase the role of [inaudible] and trade facilitations among other challenges.
And in a couple of days the Pacific Alliance will be meeting with the ministers of Mercosur in Buenos Aires to evaluate progress on joint dialogues. So we’re also looking at partners on the Atlantic even though our goal is the Asia Pacific integration. So these are some of the, I think, outcomes. In other words, there is life after TPP would be my summary.
Miner: Well thank you, Mr. Munoz, for that great introduction. You touched on a lot of important points including that the TPP will– looks like it will live on after the US pulls out but in maybe a form that people didn’t expect. Even this week we saw in Trump’s NAFTA proposal that there were many elements of the TPP in his suggestions for moving NAFTA forward. But I want to turn to the Pacific Alliance that you mentioned. As Pacific Alliance has this mandate to increase economic relations with Asia and that does seem to be a very dynamic group. So what is next for the Pacific Alliance? You have these newly created associated member countries. What seems to be the next step in signing free trade agreements with other nations? Is there a specific country or region besides more generally– more specific than Asia that you’re looking for?
Minister: Well we will soon identify the Asia Pacific negotiating partners with whom we would like to conclude the free trade agreements. And that will probably be announced at a presidential meeting that we will be having in Columbia. At the same time we will consider those countries that conclude free trade agreements with the Pacific Alliance, associate members of the Pacific Alliance. While we have had in the few years that the Pacific Alliance has been working is that there’s a great deal of interest.
In fact, there are 49 of server nations in the Pacific Alliance. That is the demonstration of our great deal of interest in what we stand for. We have advanced quite a bit. We have implemented an additional protocol that liberalizes 92% of all exchanges among the four countries that will still trade among us is still limited in our views. So there’s a lot of work ahead among us as specific alliance, but I think the key thing is that we will begin negotiating as a block with Asia-Pacific countries.
I think presents a major shift, and the emphasis then will no longer be or what will happen to TPP, but actually on advancing by using the Pacific Alliance as a platform for future trade agreements. So this is the way we are going and we are recognizing, however, and I would say that many of authorities that attended the meeting in Viña del Mar recognize also that we need to support all initiatives or and endorse the objective of integration via a specific region. And in that sense, for instance, we all highly value the effort put behind the RCEP negotiating process.
The first steps have been taken in the FTAAP initiative in APEC. And even some initiatives as the one that China has look forward build, One Belt One Road. So this is the perspective that we have. First of all, as my own country Chile. But also the Pacific alliance that has undertaken some talks with ASEAN. And in fact, we have a signed a corporation agreement with ASEAN countries.
Miner: Very interesting. That seems like a very fitting area for the Pacific alliance to line up with. So I want to turn a little bit to the US-China relationships and its effects on Latin America. There seem to be some real risks and some large trade tensions between the US and China what kind of effects can this have for the region of Latin America, and you can name some specific countries if you like. For example, China could buy more soy from Brazil, Argentina, and less from the United States. Are there other kind of major implications from a US/China trade conflict?
Minister: Well, first of all, I think that we all reckon that China’s clearly an actor of huge importance. Not only on the one level but also specifically in the Latin American/Carribean region. And I think it’s very important that statements have been made by President Xi Jinping in terms of commitment to free trade and open markets. And that was ratified with a high-level delegate that China sent to our meeting in the beginning of the month.
So our impression is that China sees Latin America as an area of great potential in terms of trade and investment. And in that regard, Chile, and I think I can perceive that most Latin American countries share the same perspective that they welcome an increased[?] presence by China in both trade and investment. And in fact, China’s already either the first or the second-largest trading partner for many Latin American countries. And they are participating in numerous infrastructure projects in the region and we hope that this trend will persist.
But let me be very clear. Chile has excellent ties with China. In fact, we were the first country in South America to recognize the People’s Republic of China in 1970, and those ties have never been suspended. But at the same time, we have excellent relations with the United States. The US is a major trade partner and the first investor in Chile, and I think our bilateral relationships have shown how mutually beneficial they have been. In fact, the US has a trade surplus with Chile. And trade has grown since we signed a bilateral free trade agreement more than a decade ago. So those China and the United States have very important not only to Chile but I perceive that to other Latin American countries of the world. And my conclusion is that nobody would win if there’s strike conflict.
What we prefer, is to have enough cooperation so that we can engage and trade in different modalities. If the plus rate is bilateral, so be it. Or subregional, regional. A chilling factor, I’m being very pragmatic with this, we have numerous bilateral mutual agreement but we also have some regional and regional trade agreements. And in fact, we have a trade agreement not only with the United States as I mentioned but also with China. And have proven really successful. We have around $32 billion of bilateral trade and even though because of the commodities decline, price decline, in recent years our trade has exports have fallen with regard to some countries. But with China has increased.
So for us, great conflict would be a clear proposition. So we would hope that there would not be introduction of trade remedies and retaliations against either specific countries or products. Because I think protectionism– we know how that ended in the past. And I think the message from [inaudible] was, that would be a negative road to begin to follow. So escalation of protectionist measures will not help anyone. And it could be very damaging for the world economy. So in our perspective, open markets are a necessity. And we ought to avoid and we’re confident that China and the United States will exercise that leadership that they will have along with others to avoid such a potentially detrimental situation.
Miner: Thank you, Mr. Muñoz. Yes. As you mentioned, a push for bilaterals, for me, seems a bit backwards looking. Especially when you see the intitiatives in Asia, like you mentioned RCEP and EFTA with free trade area of the Asia Pacific being talked about in APAC. Well, now I’m going to turn to Mr. Jamie Metzl to have some introductory comments and then a few follow up questions. But I want to let the participants know now that we’re going to open up the line for questions right now. So if you do want to get in line, you can push star one and we will go to those questions after we’re finished speaking with Mr. Metzl.
So Jamie, we have a summit with the Presidents of the United States and China coming very early in Trump’s presidency. And some serious comments from President Trump regarding trade and North Korea. Can you give us some context for this meeting compared with past presidential summits between the United States and China? And what do you think will be the main topic of discussion for the summit? Is there any possibility of forward movement?
Metzl: Great. Great questions. Thank you very much. Happy to be here. And I really appreciated the comments of the minister. The big picture backdrop for this coming summit is the state of US-China relations, which right now are in pretty bad shape. There’s a lot of distrust between the United States and China. President Trump, and when he was candidate Trump, has said some very strong things and thrown some spanners into the works of US-China relations. At the same time, China has been taking some very aggressive and even hostile actions in the South China Sea, the East China Sea, and elsewhere.
And while all of this is happening, we are seeing, in many ways, the beginning of the end of the postwar international order. And I say that– and I’ve written a recent blog post about this as well. But I say that because the transnational multilateral set of institutions that have governed the postwar world even before the election of Donald Trump to the Presidency were already weakening because new powers, particularly China and Russia, were playing an important role in international relations and not necessarily– forgive me for this background noise. Somebody’s honking their car outside of where I am. But not necessarily buying into the underlying structures of that post-war international system. So even before Donald Trump, that’s something that we are seeing. And going into this meeting we also have these two leaders in very different positions.
President Xi for the past five years has been consolidating his power and, as was mentioned earlier on this call, is on the verge at the party congress at the end of this year of consolidating power in a way that will allow him and the top leaders in the Chinese Communist Party to potentially drive a new round of reforms. Whereas President Trump is among the weakest United States presidents in recent history. His poll numbers are terrible, one after the other of his campaign promises  are being violated. And he’s representing a United States government that is in a very significant state of disarray. There’s factional infighting within The White House as an enormous number of positions within the United States government have yet to be filled. And by all accounts, there is no meaningful trade or China strategy that the administration is bringing to these meetings. So that creates a very dangerous mismatch.
And so there are very legitimate questions which have been raised about why is this summit happening now, and the answer to that brings us back to the politics of each side. President Chi, as I’ve mentioned is heading towards the party summit at the end of the year, and he needs to be shown being a strong leader of china, putting China-US relations on a stable track. And President Trump, who made China a centerpiece of his campaign, needs to demonstrate that he is doing something and the administration is doing something on China even though the facts to date, the promises that were made particularly about things like declaring China a currency manipulator have obviously not happened.
And that is going to create a lot of pressure on the issues that are going to be raised but we’ll  also suggest what some of the outcomes might be. First and foremost among the issues that will be explored at this summit will be trade. The United States has some very legitimate issues with China. Our issues related to market access into China for US companies and under the rubric of reciprocity and there has not been adequate reciprocity between the openness of the US market for Chinese investors and the openness of the Chinese market for US investors and companies. Secondly is intellectual property protection where US [inaudible] intellectual property has not largely been respected in China. And thirdly issue of the deficit which last year was $347 billion, and part of that is due to reasons that a lot of manufacturing that used to be distributed has now been localized and centralized in China. Part of that deficit has to do with this lack of reciprocal access, so those are very legitimate issues.
Unfortunately, for President Trump, the US administration has given away the greatest piece of leverage in those negotiations with China which, as the Minister mentioned, is what TPP represented. The second most important issue that they’ll be discussing is North Korea. President Trump, as was mentioned earlier on this call, has had strong words on North Korea that as yet no meaningful action to date. But where the table is being set for either China to step up in a meaningful way which China will not be willing to do for its own strategic reasons, or for the United States to do what President Trump described as acting alone, which will not mean military action, but very likely, it will mean more aggressive thinking and swift sanctions that will target Chinese companies that are doing business with North Korea.
China, however, and in these meetings I think China will make some nominal concessions on North Korea and express a willingness to take certain actions, but not to the point of using enough leverage that would change the behavior of North Korea’s leaders. The North Korea’s leadership would only change its behavior if it feared that it was going to be cut off from Chinese aid, and China’s not willing to do that again for its own strategic reasons. A third issue will be probably explored less, and that is the South China Sea where in spite of President Trump’s bluster, the fact on the ground are continuing to evolve in China’s favor at the expense of the United States and its allies.
Having said all of that, these kinds of summit are often very scripted, almost always very scripted specially between the United States and in China. So we can expect there will be a lot of choreographed interactions and at the end of that, there will be a set of deliverables that will allow each side to claim that they have some kind of victory. And these deliverables have already, I’m sure, been negotiated and so, on Saturday, over the weekend, we will see Tweets from president Trump saying that he has secured X amount of investment and X number of jobs from the Chinese who are travelling with a very large business delegation. It’s unclear whether those are investments which would have been made otherwise but China and Chinese leaders are very mindful of US politics and so they will give president Trump some nominal face-saving benefits which he can Tweet out. But this meeting ultimately will not change US-China strategic or economic relations but it could set a tone for future interactions going forward particularly once the US governments to get together. I’m ready to stop there.
Miner: Thank you, Jamie. Yeah, just to follow-up, you mentioned trade and reciprocity. I want to ask you a little bit about how China’s situation and moves seem to indicate it’s going to continue in a direction that might maintain an unbalanced relationship with its trading partners. The economy has suddenly started to pick back up, surprising many, but a lot of that seems to be focused, at least fueled, on increased debt into many sectors of the economy. Also, the transition that China’s in, moving from manufacturing to services and from investment to consumption, seems to have really stopped. And now we have more talk about this Made in China program, Made in China 2025, which really looks for import substitution and continuing China’s focus on export. Even if in the short-term it turns around, I think long-term trends will head the same way they have been so what are your thoughts on the economic relationship in the next few years if we continue to see great imbalances? How will that affect– how will China react and how will the US react?
Metzl: Yeah. Well, you’re exactly right that promised reforms have not really materialized in China. China always is trying to find the right balance between stimulus and reform. On one hand, everybody, including China’s leaders recognize that China needs significant structural reform. On the other hand, getting that reform requires taking some pain now. But because of questions about the legitimacy of Chinese governmental system, the leaders feel that they need to maintain a high level of economic growth in order to maintain social stability.
And so on one hand ultimately, economic reform and political reform in China will need to go hand in hand, but they are working feverishly to separate those two. And that’s why now and especially in the run-up to the party congress later this year, there’s a desire among the top leadership that they’re can’t be any economic dip, and so they will take whatever debt is necessary in order to fuel that growth. But it is a sugar high rather than an investment in long-term nutrition.
And with this idea of made in China, or what it used to be called, indigenous innovation, for many in other parts of the world, this just seems like a justification for continued large-scale theft of intellectual property. And China has grown very, very rapidly over a recent decade, in large part because of the access it was provided to markets in the United States, Europe, Latin America, and elsewhere. But as China’s economy continues to emerge, and as these imbalances continue to grow, these partners will not simply be willing to put up with the mercantilist behavior of the Chinese government. And this is certainly true under President Trump. But this would have been true under any US President.
Miner: Okay. Thank you Jamie, and ask one more question and then I’ll open it up to the participants. Participants, if you want to get in the line, push star one.  Mr. Metzl, I want to ask one more question about North Korea. We had another launch last night and the situation with China is that they don’t want– they want to maintain a status quo and they’re worried about a US ally being on their border if North Korea collapses. The US has very different goals in terms of North Korea so how can we find– how can US and China find some common ground in this summit?
MinerThey can talk about North Korea, they can share concerns about North Korea and China should be more concerned about North Korean nuclear weapons than the United States. North Korean nuclear capabilities have a far greater and more transformative impact on China’s behavior and maneuverability than they do on the United States. But China thus far has made a strategic calculation that they’ll put up with virtually any behavior by the North Koreans rather than take action that could potentially undermine the stability of the North Korean regime. Until that changes, China will not be willing to take the steps necessary to alter North Korea’s strategic calculus. So we will get lip service to greater coordination, but the end of the day, North Korea will continue on its path towards deliverable nuclear weapons unless it’s stopped. And the only thing that’s going to stop it is China.
Okay. Thank you, Mr. Metzl. So we’ll now head to the questions. If the operator will please place the first person on the line.
Your first question comes from the line of Franco Ordoñez from McClatchy. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Hi, thank you so much for doing this call and being on the call. This is the question for the minister. It sounds from the call [inaudible] that you and other leaders in Latin America will be watching this visit in Mar-a-Lago. I was just curious. What are the things that you will be looking for on the visit, and what is the significance to Latin America are there any specific things you’ll be watching for?
Minister: Right, well it would be very difficult to ignore such an important meeting as between the President of the United States and the Chinese leader. So that we will be paying attention. What signals is not up to us to decide but I would want for that meeting to, at least in terms of trade, a resolve in terms of a commitment to open trade. There are different modalities as I said, some may prefer bilateral. The danger with bilateral even though Chile is in favor bilateral deals is that we end up with so-called spaghetti ball. Common rule and coherent rules are better in that sense. But we will take any alternative so long as it leads to open trade. So that would probably be something we’ll be paying a lot of attention. And I think that it is very positive that the leaders of the United States and China meeting. That, I think, is a signal in the direction of stability, in the direction of certainty because there’s just too much uncertainty in the [inaudible] today. So the two leaders of the main countries in the world meet, I think, is a positive signal.
Thank you. We can put on the next participant, please.
Your next question comes from the line of Rose Aralba O’Brien from Reuters. Please go ahead, your line is open.
Oh, hi. Minister, you mentioned that the importance of China for Latin America, and you also talked about within the TPP the importance of issues like labor standards and other aspects of TPP’s anti-corruption measures. In my understanding is that was one of the main criticisms that China had off for TPP and its own back deals like asset although much pure trade deals. And so I was wondering, how does Latin America square that circle? Do you exclude China from this kind of  Pacific Alliance platform talks or do you give way on issues like labor standards?
Minister:  Well, I can only speak on behalf of Chile. I cannot speak on behalf of any other country, let alone China. And I would say the following that at least the aspiration of the Pacific Alliance countries, the poor countries that make up the Pacific Alliance, is to negotiate free trade agreements that are high standards, high quality, high disciplines. And thus, that include labor standards and environmental standards. So we don’t want to just negotiate any free trade agreement.
No, we want to negotiate high-quality free trade agreements. I mean, in that sense, I think that Pacific Alliance countries want to go in the direction of the standards that [TBP?] sought to achieve and actually achieved and to do it also in short periods of time. We don’t want to negotiate free trade agreements with our partners of the Asia Pacific that take years and years. We think that it’s of the highest importance to negotiate in the short periods of time. But coming back to your point, I think that many countries are looking for high-quality standards and that’s what at least Chile will seek and what Pacific Alliance countries have signaled that we want with each [of us to be?} partners.
Minister Munoz, Mr. Metzl, do you have time for maybe two more questions?
Sure.
Okay.
Great. So please put the next participant on the line.
Absolutely. Your next question comes from the line of Andre Suarez from Inter-American Development Bank. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Okay. Thank you. Thank you, minister. My question’s for Minister Munoz. I would want to know how do you see the world map for integration between the Pacific Alliance and Mercosur? How achievable do you think that is?
Minister: Well within two days we are meeting at the ministerial level in Buenos Aires. And we have, I think, paved the way towards a productive dialog among the [inaudible] of [inaudible] with the two integration schemes. Let me just say very clearly that we’re looking for infusion [inaudible] they’re different type of animals if I were to say. But we are working towards a joint plan of action that, for example, contemplates facilitation of trade, SMEs, electronic windows, a series of trade enhancing measures that I think both [blocks?] want to achieve.
So we have worked before– In fact, our experts have been meeting. Last year there was a meeting on a level of vice ministers in Peru. So I think we are on our way. In the past there were obstacles to what we’re doing now. But the climate has changed and the– I think the pressures to achieve a great integration are much higher and more necessary in this world context. So I think that this dialogue between the Pacific Alliance and Mercosul sure I hope will yield a result in terms of the specific issues that may constitute a joint plan of action.
Miner: Thank you, Mr. Minister. So we’ll take one more question. Just to clarify, the last caller was from the Inter-American Development Bank. I’ll introduce the next caller, is Win Du, from Voice of America. Please go on.
This is for the minister. Minister, can you say something about the Chinese investment in Chile so far?
Minister: Well, there’s some significant Chinese invesments in Chile right now. But we really are looking forward to attracting more Chinese investments because China is not yet one of the major sources of foreign direct investment in Chile. And there are two areas where we would look forward to achieving more Chinese investment. One is infrastructure and the other one is energy. And in light of this, there’s a foreign investment promotion agency called InvestChile that is designing a strategy, in fact, to identify and attract Chinese companies that want to invest in Chile. And the idea is that these companies could bring their own capital to Chile, manufacture in our country, and eventually export to other destinations using Chile as a platform for doing business elsewhere in the region as an alternative as well. So we’re looking forward to much more substantial Chinese investment in Chile. They would certainly be welcome and we’ll be speaking in that regard. And I hope that we can have more Chinese investment as we move on.
Thank you.
Miner: Okay. Thank you. I want to thank both of our speakers, Mr. Heraldo Muñoz and Mr. Jamie Metzl. And all of our participants for coming on the call today. Thank you, and this is the end of the call.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
This concludes today’s conference call. You may now disconnect.