On June 4, President Sebastián Piñera of Chile signed several bilateral trade agreements with El Salvador on the occasion of his visit to the Central American nation. The policies signed function within the framework of a 2002 Free Trade Agreement (FTA) between Chile and El Salvador. Piñera’s visit comes on the heels of the passage of the Public-Private Partnership (P3) Law. “There is an important number of Chilean investors who see an opportunity to invest in the Central American market, particularly in El Salvador,” said President Funes. Lead by Venezuela, Ecuador and Bolivia, much of South America has allied in recent years to create alternative, solidarity-based development agreements through the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA) and other regional institutions as a counter to US influence. Chile, however, has maintained its historic ties to the US-lead neoliberal economic model and remained a close US ally in the face of waning US control over the region. The country’s loyalty was recently rewarded by the US when Chile became the first Latin American country whose citizens can travel to the US for tourism without a visa. In El Salvador, San Salvador Mayor and right-wing Nationalist Republican Alliance (ARENA) presidential candidate Norman Quijano announced that Chile, “will be a reference for our future government.” On the other hand, Salvador Sánchez Cerén, Vice-president and presidential candidate for the leftist Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN) party, has said his future government would seek closer relations and cooperation with the ALBA-block.