ANÁLISIS | The FOIP at Ten: Latin America’s Unfinished Strategic Conversation
[Japan’s Voices No.20 / Global Perspectives on Japan] The FOIP at Ten: Latin America’s Unfinished Strategic Conversation
When the Japanese government, then led by Prime Minister Abe Shinzo, officially unveiled the strategic framework of the Free and Open Indo-Pacific (FOIP) 10 years ago, it contained an element that clearly set it apart from other countries’ visions for the macro-region: It included Latin America, specifically the countries located on the Pacific coast.
There is a certain geographical logic to this, given that they share a presence facing a common ocean. More importantly, however, the Latin American nations located on this slope are mostly democracies that value international rules and trade freely with the world (albeit increasingly with Asia), for which they need stability and security in this interconnected maritime system. That is, they fully aligned with the approach of Japanese diplomacy.
Two years before the launch of the FOIP to the world, PM Abe had visited Latin America on a tour that included Mexico, Colombia, Chile, and Brazil, where he launched the “Juntos” initiative—an invitation to improve connectivity between his country and the region based on economic connectivity (open exchange and quality infrastructure) and values (adherence to multilateralism), as well as common challenges such as climate change and natural disasters. Both proposals would prove to be tremendously complementary.
The inevitable question is what has happened since the FOIP was launched. In 2026, Japan and its partners on this side of the Pacific have not fallen into protectionist practices and continue to believe that a rules-based world order is their best option for navigating today’s world. Although it was an initiative conceived and negotiated previously, the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) would ultimately become a key pillar of the FOIP’s broader architecture from the moment it entered into force. Today, many countries enjoy its benefits, and new countries have expressed interest in joining.
As a provider of raw materials, including minerals, hydrocarbons, and agricultural products, Latin America occupies an important place in global supply chains—something Japanese investors have successfully leveraged. According to JETRO figures, in 2024 Japan’s foreign direct investment was double that of Africa and the Middle East combined. Most of the so-called sōgō shōsha are present and recognized brands among the 3,000 active companies.
Along with the CPTPP and other bilateral trade agreements, Japan enjoys a long and positive diplomatic relationship with Latin American countries, a little-known advantage over its Asian neighbors. With Chile, for example, 2027 will mark 130 years of the Treaty of Amity, Commerce and Navigation, which established official ties between both nations. The relationship with Brazil precedes it by two years, dating back to 1895.
It also possesses another major asset: the existence of a community of Japanese descendants who have been part of the Latin American ethnic landscape for over a hundred years. The Nikkei number around three million people, forming very large groups in countries like Brazil and boasting influential representatives, such as Peruvian leader Keiko Fujimori.
However, it is necessary to recognize that Latin American countries have not adopted the concept of the FOIP, despite fundamentally subscribing to it through their behavior. This should not necessarily be interpreted as a failure of Japanese diplomacy, but rather due to the fact that talking about the “Indo-Pacific” is understood as a form of alignment with the United States after that country adopted the FOIP with an emphasis on security. The adverse reaction from China, now a main trading partner for many, acts as a disincentive. This is regrettable, as few Latin American foreign ministries, academics, and analysts understood that they were essentially being offered an inclusive strategic framework—one that served as an alternative to the binary dynamics of the major powers while also opening a door to the Indian Ocean region, largely unexplored commercial terrain for most.
For this reason, the tenth anniversary of the FOIP should invite reflection on its reach in the Latin American region and how to continue promoting it. During this period, Japan and its partners on this side of the Pacific have not fallen into protectionist practices and continue to believe that a rules-based world order is their best option for navigating today’s world. The recent tour by Foreign Minister Motegi Toshimitsu to Mexico, Panama, Ecuador, and Trinidad and Tobago appeared to be a step in this direction.
It served not only to refresh the relevance of the principles of “freedom”, “openness”, “diversity”, “inclusion” and the “rule of law”, but was also accompanied by concrete measures key to improving the region’s autonomy and resilience—reducing single-point dependencies without closing off the economy.
Minister Motegi pointed to the need to upgrade and improve current partnerships like the CPTPP, while reaffirming interest in reaching new economic agreements with inner blocs such as Mercosur. In this regard, trade remains concentrated in the exchange of raw materials for industrial products, whereas new technologies allow for diversification into the service sector.
There are also real needs in Latin America for quality infrastructure, making the Public-Private Platform of Latin American and the Caribbean Infrastructure Development Alliance (PLACIDA) proposed last year particularly timely. Tremendous opportunities exist in clean energy and the refining of critical minerals to increase strategic complementarity between the parties, thereby reducing the current fragility in supply chains.
Along those lines, then-Prime Minister Kishida Fumio pledged his country’s support in 2024 during a visit to Brazil and Paraguay through a contribution to the Trust Fund for Achieving Development of Latin America and the Caribbean, established with the Inter-American Development Bank to mobilize private capital and energize sustainable development in the region. Since then, the Japan International Cooperation Agency has invested up to USD 1.5 billion in that fund.
Perhaps what is needed is to double down on the FOIP, while capitalizing on the new areas opened by Prime Minister Takaichi Sanae’s updated framework — in particular, the proposal for multilayered security cooperation frameworks. There are concrete opportunities in the port, maritime, and naval domains where Japan and Latin America can draw closer. New technologies are needed to better monitor ocean spaces against threats such as drug trafficking and illegal fishing fleets, as well as to protect legal cargo flows from disruptions. The possibilities of transferring second-hand military equipment and joint shipbuilding projects could also deepen the relationship between the navies on opposite shores of the Pacific. It is not uncommon to see the JMSDF Training Squadron making its way along our coasts.
Ten years on, the FOIP remains as one of the most coherent strategic frameworks available to Latin American nations that wish to navigate an increasingly competitive world without surrendering their sovereignty or their values. It was a pro-stability framework not a containment strategy against one country or another. That distinction matters more today than it did in 2016, precisely because the pressure to choose sides has intensified considerably. The region’s challenge is not to decide between Washington and Beijing, but to act with the strategic clarity that the FOIP has always offered: open economies, quality connectivity, rules-based order, and partnerships built on shared principles rather than dependency. Japan understood this a decade ago. Latin America is still catching up.
JUAN PABLO TORO
Senior Research Fellow AthenaLab
