Chile: Kast halts transition talks with Boric, citing lack of trust over China-linked subsea cable briefings
Kast said the incoming team had not been given adequate background not only on the cable initiative but also on the country’s fiscal situation and last-minute public-sector appointments
Chile’s president-elect José Antonio Kast said on Tuesday he is suspending the handover process with outgoing President Gabriel Boric, arguing his team cannot trust the information it has received on key issues, including a China-linked subsea fiber-optic project that would connect central Chile with Hong Kong.
The move followed a meeting at La Moneda palace that ended abruptly after Kast demanded Boric retract earlier remarks that he had already briefed the incoming administration about the project and its geopolitical implications. Boric refused. “Because that is false, and I’m not going to do it, he decided the next bilateral meetings would not take place,” Boric told reporters.
Speaking from the president-elect’s office, Kast said the incoming team had not been given adequate background not only on the cable initiative but also on the country’s fiscal situation and last-minute public-sector appointments. “We are ending the handover process because we do not trust the information being delivered. We require greater auditing and more information,” he said.
Interior Minister Álvaro Elizalde confirmed that scheduled minister-to-minister handover meetings were called off. The outgoing government says Boric spoke with Kast by phone on February 18 and raised the cable issue as U.S. concerns were already emerging, according to La Moneda’s account.
The dispute escalated after Washington announced visa revocations affecting three Chilean officials linked in local reporting to the “Chile–China Express” project; among those named was Transport Minister Juan Carlos Muñoz.
At the center of the controversy is the project’s administrative status. Reports say a decree signed on January 27 granted a 30-year concession to a China Mobile affiliate but was annulled within 48 hours; the Boric administration argues the act was never cleared by the comptroller’s office, meaning it was not formally approved.
