The White House’s Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) issued a report this week highlighting Nicaragua’s consistent “abuses of labor rights, human rights and fundamental freedoms, and dismantling the rule of law.” 

Following the report, USTR recommended responsive action by the U.S., escalating the American response to include tariffs on imports from Nicaragua. Options explored include a 100% tariff on all Nicaraguan imports and phased or targeted tariffs on specific products. The USTR report also suggested suspension of benefits to Nicaragua under the 2006 CAFTA-DR trade agreement. 

While the investigation and report were conducted under a legal provision known as Section 301, which allows the USTR to pursue action against countries with unfair trade barriers, this week’s report contained many references to the escalating religious persecution being conducted by the Nicaraguan government under President Daniel Ortega and his wife, co-President Rosario Murillo. 

“The regime has repressed religious organizations,” the report stated, “through the forced closure and seizures of institutions and properties.”  

The report goes on to cite several prominent incidents of religious persecution, including the seizure of the Jesuit-run University of Central America and harassment of a U.S.-based church. 

Nicaragua’s growing habit of confiscating property from domestic and foreign religious institutions, the report finds, has “created a high-risk environment for U.S. companies investing and conducting business in the country.” 

The Ortega regime has aggressively targeted the Catholic church in Nicaragua since 2019, when some churches decided to shelter student protestors from police brutality. Seen as an organized force and a threat to the president’s total control of the country, the church has faced an unrelenting barrage of legal challenges and watched as many of its leaders have been imprisoned or exiled. 

Even in exile, these leaders experience constant pressure and repression, with the Ortega regime threatening to punish family members, friends, and parishioners should they speak out in America or elsewhere. 

Nicaragua withdrew from the U.N. Human Rights Council in February, days after a group of U.N. experts released a strongly worded report rebuking it for systematically cracking down on human rights, democratic norms, and religious groups. 

“We are seeing the methodical repression of anyone who dares to challenge Ortega and Murillo’s grip on power,” said Ariela Peralta, an expert who contributed to the report. “This is a government at war with its own people.” 

The Ortega regime claims that the U.N. and the Organization of American States, both of which have issued statements opposing Nicaragua’s crackdown on religious groups, are part of an international smear campaign against it. Murillo denounced the U.N. report as “falsehoods” and “slander.” 

The U.S. Department of State added Nicaragua to the Special Watchlist (SWL) of countries with particularly severe violations of religious freedom in 2019, a designation that continued until 2022, when it was raised to the Countries of Particular Concern (CPC) list. The latter designation indicates increased concern about the state of religious freedom in Nicaragua and normally carries with it certain legislatively mandated consequences in the form of sanctions. 

“Catholic clergy and laity continued to experience government harassment,” said a U.S. State Department publication, citing media reports, “including slander, arbitrary investigations by government agencies based on charges that clergy and laity said were unfounded, withholding of tax exemptions, and denial of religious services for political prisoners.” 

USCIRF similarly began including Nicaragua in its report in 2020, recommending that it be added to the SWL then and upgrading its recommendation to the CPC list in 2023. 

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