Unidos a la distancia

By Carolina Barrientos | Trade Center Manager AmCham Guatemala United in the Distance

The month of March, 2020, will go down in history as a worldwide turning point, the moment when a virus became global and came to shatter paradigms in many aspects, international trade being one of them.

We had not seen, since the post-war period, how Latin America and the rest of the world, closed their borders with just one objective in mind: to substitute imports. This model was carried out since, after the devastation in the European countries and the ensuing scarcity of raw materials, Latin American countries, with the aim of promoting local industries, decided to run tests to produce locally everything their fellow nationals were in need of, thus strengthening their national industries. In that period of time, measures were implemented, such as subsidies and the overvaluation of local currencies, which led to a general increase in prices, the rise of oligopolies and the disappearance of self-regulatory mechanisms.

Today, our borders are closed again, but not because of economic reasons, but for a matter of prevention and safeguarding for all the citizens of the world. Little by little, we see how all countries begin to join these measures, without even neglecting the preparation and implementation of prevention plans against a recession in the economy or its reactivation.

Consequently, we can say that History repeats itself, but mistakes do not.

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