The president of Costa Rica, Laura Fernández, said on Wednesday, June 17, 2026, that she is interested in maintaining a “fraternal” relationship with Nicaragua in trade and borders, and affirmed that her recent statements about the neighboring country were taken out of context to confuse the population.
“I am interested in having a fraternal trade relationship with Nicaragua, an orderly border, where Nicaraguan people living in Costa Rica are regulated,” Fernández declared in his weekly press conference.
On June 13, 2026, the president told the international media NTN24 that Nicaraguans have “the form of Government that they have chosen to have,” which contrasts with the position of other governments and international organizations that have accused Daniel Ortega, in office since 2007, of systematically violating the human rights of his population and engaging in fraudulent electoral processes.
These statements generated a shower of criticism from former Costa Rican presidents Luis Guillermo Solís (2014-2018) and Laura Chinchilla (2010-2014), from human rights organizations and from Nicaraguan exiles, among other personalities.
Fernández assured this Wednesday, June 17, that his statements were “taken out of context” by the former presidents to “confuse” the population, and explained that in an interview he cannot “rant against a neighboring country” with which he shares a border through which “a good part of the trade” with the Central American region moves.
“I hardly have enough time to fix Costa Rica’s problems, as it is for me to go get into other people’s problems,” he noted.
The president said she has a “good relationship” with her colleagues from El Salvador, Nayib Bukele; from the Dominican Republic, Luis Abinader; from Panama, José Raúl Mulino; from Chile, José Antonio Kast; and the United States, Donald Trump, but she is not an admirer of any government or leader.
“I am a pro-democracy person, a person who loves freedom, justice and above all human dignity. I am not an admirer of any government, of any regime of the right, left or center; I am not an admirer of any president,” Fernández declared.
“We do not have diplomatic relations” with Nicaragua
She commented that in the journalistic interview she was “emphatic” that “with Nicaragua we do not have diplomatic relations, not even an embassy.”
Bilateral relations between Costa Rica and Nicaragua are maintained at the consulate level. Since 2018, the then Costa Rican president Carlos Alvarado (2018-2022) decided not to appoint an ambassador to Nicaragua due to the repression and violations of the rights of opponents and protesters.
Nicaragua has been going through a political and social crisis since April 2018, which was accentuated after the controversial votes of November 2021, in which Daniel Ortega, 80 years old and in power since 2007, was re-elected for a fifth term, the fourth consecutive.
These elections took place with its main contenders in prison, whom it later expelled from the country and deprived of their nationality and political rights, after accusing them of “coup plotters” and “treason to the country.”
