De la Espriella Government Moves to Revive Japan Trade Talks, Court Toyota and Mazda Investment

Tokyo mission seeks to revive a 2012 trade pact and car assembly

Colombia’s new government is trying to restart negotiations on an Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) with Japan that formally opened in December 2012 and never reached signature, and it is pairing the trade push with a direct appeal to Japanese automakers to build vehicles in the country again. President Abelardo de la Espriella used a televised address on Sunday, August 30, 2026, to present the results of a mission to Tokyo by Minister of Commerce, Industry and Tourism Mauricio Gómez Amín, which produced a joint commitment with Japan to put technical teams back to work on the pact and opened talks with Toyota Motor Corporation (TYO: 7203; NYSE: TM), Mazda Motor Corporation (TYO: 7261) and Toshiba Corporation.

“After nearly 15 years of paralyzed negotiations, in the first 15 days of my government we managed to take significant steps to unblock the economic partnership agreement between Colombia and Japan,” de la Espriella said, according to El Tiempo. He added: “We want to open markets for our products, incorporate technology and generate new opportunities for our countryside and our industry. We are also working so that Japan looks at Colombia again as an investment destination.”

The Ministerio de Comercio, Industria y Turismo (MinCIT, the Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Tourism) summarized the message in a statement issued August 31, 2026: “Colombia is once again making its way in the world: we are seeking markets for our products, investment to generate jobs, technology to transform our economy, and strong allies to accompany us in the reconstruction.”

“Japan is looking at Colombia again, and we are ready to capitalize on that confidence,” Gómez Amín said in the ministry’s August 25 statement on the first day of meetings.

What happened in Tokyo

Gómez Amín’s mission ran from August 22 to August 27, according to Infobae Colombia. On Tuesday, August 25, the minister met State Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry Toshiro Ino of Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI). In its readout of the meeting, METI said the two exchanged views on potential areas for bilateral cooperation, including trade and investment, and agreed to continue deepening their cooperation; Ino also expressed condolences to the victims of the August 10 earthquake. MinCIT said the meeting advanced an agenda to reactivate and conclude the EPA, which Gómez Amín described in a message on X quoted by Semana as “a modern agreement that opens doors for our agroindustry, investment and technology transfer.”

Japan’s State Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry Toshiro Ino (left) and Colombian Minister of Commerce, Industry and Tourism Mauricio Gómez Amín (second from right) during their August 25, 2026 meeting in Tokyo. (Photo courtesy MinCIT)

Two days later, on Thursday, August 27, Gómez Amín met for more than 40 minutes with Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi, Semana reported. According to the readout published by Japan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and cited by Semana, Motegi opened the meeting with condolences for the earthquake and said he welcomed a visit so soon after the new administration took office as a sign that it gives importance to relations with Japan. Gómez Amín thanked Japan for its support after the earthquake and expressed his firm desire to reactivate the EPA negotiations. On that basis, the two ministers confirmed they would instruct technical officials in both countries to continue discussions diligently with a view to resuming negotiations.

MinCIT said in a communiqué reported by El Espectador that the meeting “made it possible to take a new step in the bilateral relationship and establish a concrete route for the technical teams of both countries to continue the conversations on the EPA.”

The Motegi meeting also covered Colombia’s participation in GREEN×EXPO 2027, the international horticultural exposition that opens in Yokohama in March 2027. Motegi thanked Gómez Amín for the formal letter confirming that Colombia will take part, according to an EFE dispatch published by El Tiempo.

In another message on X quoted by Infobae Colombia, Gómez Amín wrote: “On the instruction of President Abelardo de la Espriella, we have taken on the responsibility of unblocking a trade relationship that for nearly 15 years was not able to advance as Colombia needed.”

A negotiation that predates three presidents

The “15 years” cited by the president and the minister refers to a process that formally began almost 14 years ago, during the administration of Juan Manuel Santos. EPA negotiations between Colombia and Japan began in December 2012, according to Colombia’s embassy in Tokyo, which states that the proposed agreement has 18 chapters, covering areas including cooperation, intellectual property, government procurement, trade facilitation and improvement of the business environment; that 16 of those chapters have been concluded and agreed; and that the chapters on rules of origin and market access remain pending. The talks were suspended in 2021, El Tiempo reported in September 2025, and Infobae Colombia reported that the two pending chapters have been outstanding since the government of Iván Duque.

The de la Espriella government is also not the first to announce a restart. On September 4, 2025, then-President Gustavo Petro asked then-Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, at a meeting in Tokyo, to speed up the signing of the EPA, calling it a “fundamental necessity,” according to an EFE dispatch published by Portafolio. Petro and then-Commerce Minister Diana Marcela Morales led a meeting in Osaka during Expo 2025 to reaffirm both countries’ will to reactivate the negotiations, and Morales held meetings with Japanese companies and with METI Parliamentary Vice-Minister Akiyoshi Kato, El Tiempo reported at the time. No agreement was signed.

Japanese foreign direct investment in Colombia totaled $766.9 million USD between 2000 and 2024, making Japan the third-largest Asian investor in the country after China and India, with more than 45 Japanese companies operating locally, according to figures reported by Infobae Colombia. Colombia’s non-mining, non-energy exports to Japan reached $293.4 million USD in 2024, including green coffee, fresh flowers, coffee derivatives and agroindustrial goods. Over the narrower 2010 to 2021 period, the Colombian embassy in Tokyo puts cumulative Japanese investment flows at $562.7 million USD, or 32.9% of all Asia-Pacific investment Colombia received, ahead of China at 21.2% and Australia at 14.6%, and describes Japan as the largest Asia-Pacific source of foreign investment in the country.

The automotive pitch

Also on August 25, Gómez Amín met Hiroshi Nanbu, president of Business Planning & Operation at Toyota Motor Corporation, and invited Toyota to expand its presence in Colombia through hybrid and electric vehicle assembly, charging infrastructure, and development of local suppliers, MinCIT said. Semana identified Automotores Toyota Colombia President Hiroshi Yonenaga as also attending. The minister also met executives of Mazda and Toshiba, with the discussions covering manufacturing, digital infrastructure, supplier development and technological innovation, El Tiempo reported; MinCIT’s August 31 statement listed manufacturing, electric mobility, energy, digital infrastructure, innovation and technology as the sectors explored.

“We are working, for example, so that Mazda can once again assemble vehicles in Colombia and so that Toyota evaluates our country as a destination for projects related to electric vehicles,” de la Espriella said in the address. He added, in a line El Tiempo reported was a reference to the incentives planned to attract that investment: “Here we are going to give them every guarantee.”

The Toyota meeting revisited a relationship of more than five decades, according to MinCIT. The first Toyota vehicles were registered in Colombia in October 1959, and the company formalized a local distributor in 1967, according to El Carro Colombiano. Sofasa, the assembler of Renault (Euronext Paris: RNO) vehicles in Envigado, Antioquia, signed a letter of intent with Toyota in 1989; assembly of Land Cruisers began there in March 1992, Hilux pickups followed the next year, and local assembly continued for 17 years until Toyota exited its shareholding in Sofasa in December 2008.

Mazda assembled vehicles in Colombia for three decades through the Compañía Colombiana Automotriz (CCA) at a plant in Bogotá. The last vehicle left the line on April 30, 2014, and the closure eliminated about 500 jobs, according to Infobae Colombia, which reported that the decision responded to falling exports to neighboring markets and lower import costs. Mazda now imports all of its vehicles for the Colombian market from Japan and México.

The pitch comes as vehicle sales grow. Colombia registered 213,377 new vehicles between January and August 2026, a 42.1% increase over the same period of 2025, with Toyota third in the market at 18,946 registrations, according to figures from the Asociación Nacional de Empresarios de Colombia (ANDI, the National Business Association of Colombia) and Federación Nacional de Comerciantes (Fenalco, the National Federation of Merchants) cited by El Tiempo. Cumulative registrations of new electric vehicles reached 29,347 through July 2026, a 231.2% increase over the same period a year earlier, according to ANDI and Fenalco figures reported by El Tiempo.

Headline image: A slide titled “Toyota Strategy in Colombia” is shown during Minister Mauricio Gómez Amín’s meeting with Toyota Motor Corporation representatives in Tokyo on August 25, 2026. The slide states that Toyota is expanding its electrified lineup in Colombia to a 61% xEV ratio in 2027. (Photo courtesy MinCIT)

A dissenting view

José Clopatofsky, director of Motor magazine, published by Casa Editorial El Tiempo, called the assembly proposal “improbable” in an analysis published by El Tiempo on August 31, citing the structural conditions of local demand and tax advantages that benefit other countries.

“It is quite unlikely that this will happen, because Colombia’s market is too small to support an additional plant, made worse by the fact that we have free trade agreements with a great many countries,” Clopatofsky said. “That is, except for Japan, India and China, they have to pay taxes on combustion vehicles; all the electric vehicles in the world pay no taxes to come to Colombia.”

Clopatofsky also pointed to the earlier closures of the Chevrolet and Mazda plants in Colombia, which El Tiempo reported were shut down years ago for lack of profitability, and said that because practically all brands face no tax burden on cars sold in Colombia, importing is favored over local production.

Earthquake assistance

The Tokyo mission began less than two weeks after the magnitude 7.4 earthquake of August 10, which struck Chocó department and caused heavy damage across western Colombia, as Finance Colombia reported. De la Espriella said Japan had expressed solidarity with affected families and its willingness to contribute humanitarian aid, and Gómez Amín wrote that the Japanese government’s support “will translate into aid and contributions for the families affected by the earthquake.” The statements from MinCIT did not specify an amount.

“I am deeply grateful to the Japanese people and government,” de la Espriella said.

The reconstruction burden is one of several pressures facing the administration, which took office August 7. Finance Colombia’s earlier analysis examined the security situation, the earthquake response and the government’s position in Congress.

None of the statements issued by either government reports a signed agreement, a specific investment commitment from Toyota or Mazda, or a date for a formal resumption of EPA negotiating rounds.

Above image: A slide titled “Toyota Strategy in Colombia” is shown during Minister Mauricio Gómez Amín’s meeting with Toyota Motor Corporation representatives in Tokyo on August 25, 2026. The slide states that Toyota is expanding its electrified lineup in Colombia to a 61% xEV ratio in 2027. (Photo courtesy MinCIT)