The ‘world tour’ of Correa in 144 trips

If Rafael Correa meets the agenda announced until May 2017, in his ten years in the presidency of the Republic, he will have completed 144 trips abroad. The president (official travels, summits, academic appointments, among others) will have been in at least 45 countries.

Right now, the head of state is in the Dominican Republic to participate in the Fifth Summit of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC). “I’m going to Punta Cana like the pelucones (slang word for well-off people),” he joked on Twitter, Monday afternoon.

Yesterday, at the Tababela airport, before boarding the plane, he defended his vision of a Latin American regional integration. He spoke of the need to strengthen spaces such as Celac so that he can ‘deal’ with traditional organizations such as the Organization of American States (OAS).

Although he said that there has been progressing in the last decade, he also acknowledged that in recent months and years “the integration process has weakened.” He also said he was not surprised by the decision of the new US president Donald Trump to abandon the trans-Pacific trade agreement.

He assured that ten years ago he already warned that “the neoliberal globalization would end when the benefits for the United States ends.” And that’s what happened, he said.

And he criticized the processes of free trade that, he explained, only seek to create global markets and not societies. He was optimistic, however, that the region recovers lost ground regarding integration.