Caribbean & Central America - December 2025

On 11 November, thousands of demonstrators took to the streets of the Costa Rican capital San José to protest a raft of policies introduced by President Rodrigo Chaves.

The demonstration was organised by agriculture lobby group Grupo de Liderazgo del Sector Agropecuario, which comprises various organisations including Corporación Hortícola Nacional (CHN), Unión Nacional de Productores Agropecuarios Costarricenses (Unag), Unión de Pequeños Productores Agropecuarios (UPA Nacional), and Unión de Productores Independientes y Actividades Varias (Upiav), with agricultural policy the chief concern. However, teachers’ unions such as the Sindicato de Trabajadoras y Trabajadores de la Educación Costarricense also supported the protest, with the neglect and underfunding of the public education system another growing concern in the country.

Farmers believe that Chaves’ efforts to drive economic growth by liberalising trade has had a negative effect on the sector, exposing them to cheap foreign imports and reducing domestic production of basic foodstuffs such as rice and tomatoes. 

Rice producers blame changes on the tax regime covering the sector introduced by Chaves in 2022, when the president signed a decree that reduced import tariffs on rough and milled rice from 35% to 3.5% and 4% respectively. According to Minor Cruz, executive director of national rice lobbying group Conarroz, domestic rice production has fallen by 59% since the change. Cruz called on Chaves to provide financial support for the sector, citing concerns around unemployment and food security.

Some have also criticised Chaves’ efforts to liberalise trade by joining trade blocs such as the Pacific Alliance, which comprises Chile, Colombia, Mexico, and Peru. Costa Rica’s application was approved in December 2024, granting exporters from those nations greater access to the country’s market, and the country has also agreed trade deals with Israel, Ecuador, and the United Arab Emirates. Chaves has also applied to join the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), an Asia-Pacific trade bloc, which agreed to start an accession process for Costa Rica in November 2024, adding to concerns about cheap food imports from member states including Vietnam and Malaysia, both of which are significant rice producers.

Protest leaders are calling on Chaves to row back policies such as the reduction in tariffs on rice imports; the introduction of a monitoring system for cattle farmers; and the application to join the CPTPP. However, while Chaves’ drive to liberalise trade may have become a lightning rod for discontent among farmers, the issues facing the agricultural sector appear to be part of a wider shift. A report from the public Universidad de Costa Rica (UCR) published in October found that the area of land under cultivation in Costa Rica fell by 10%-27% between 2021 and 2024. It also found that the agriculture sector accounts for 3.3% of GDP this year, down from 4.7% in 2015, as well as highlighting the fact that the agriculture ministry receives just 0.49% of the government budget, which is around the same level as a decade ago.

However, these figures are understandable to a certain extent as Costa Rica has been attempting to continue its transition away from being an agricultural economy and move up value chain in sectors such as high-tech manufacturing. The country has had significant success in this regard in recent decades, with the medical devices sector a standout performer, and officials are attempting to repeat the trick by positioning Costa Rica as part of a new semiconductor supply chain in the Western Hemisphere, tapping into Washington’s desire to reduce its reliance on Asian markets.

This puts Chaves, and his potential successor Laura Fernández, a former minister of the presidency under Chaves who he has picked as his political heir and is running for president for the Partido Pueblo Soberano, on collision course with agricultural producers that face an existential threat to their livelihoods in the face of a political project that appears committed to opening the Costa Rican market in the hope of driving economic growth. This increases the likelihood of future protests, which will also likely be supported by other sectors that feel they have been neglected, and could portend political instability in the coming years.

OECD warns on impact of US tariffs

In a 2 December report on Costa Rica, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) projects Costa Rica’s GDP growth to remain “broadly stable,” easing from 4.2% in 2025 to 3.5% in 2026 and 3.4% in 2027. It notes that the contribution of external demand is expected to gradually weaken due to increased tariffs on Costa Rican exports to the US, the country’s main trading partner. In July 2025, the tariff applied to Costa Rica’s goods exports to the US rose to 15%. The US accounts for around 16.2% of Costa Rica’s total exports and 47% of goods exports according to OECD. On 14 November however the US removed reciprocal tariffs on several Costa Rican agricultural exports, in line with an executive order from President Donald Trump targeting goods that the US does not produce domestically in sufficient quantities.