María Sonsoles García León

María Sonsoles García León is a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Adrienne Arsht Latin America Center. She is a lawyer and expert in international trade, productive public policy, investment, customs, and business strategy, with more than fifteen years of experience across Ecuador’s public, private, and academic sectors.

From 2023 to 2025, García León served as Ecuador’s minister of production, foreign trade, investment, and fisheries, where she led key reforms to strengthen the country’s productive and export sectors, including policies on free trade zones, quality standards, sustainable agribusiness, circular economy, and public-private partnerships. She also advanced Ecuador’s trade agenda through negotiations with Canada, the United Arab Emirates, and the Dominican Republic, and the approval of trade agreements with China and Costa Rica. In the private sector, García León has advised national and multinational companies on trade strategy, customs, tax planning, special regimes, and market access through COMERXEC Consulting. She currently serves on the board of Continental Tire in Ecuador.

García León holds a master’s degree in international tax law, foreign trade, and customs from Universidad Externado de Colombia; an LLM in international trade law from Erasmus University School of Law in Rotterdam; and a diploma in public-private partnerships from Tecnológico de Monterrey. She is currently pursuing an executive MBA at INCAE Business School.