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Foreign policy isn\u2019t usually a decisive factor in Ecuador\u2019s elections. But as the country heads into Sunday\u2019s razor-edge presidential runoff, Renato Rivera, the director of the Ecuadorian Observatory of Organized Crime, said that the candidates\u2019 stances toward the United States are playing a \u201cfundamental role in the elections.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the first round of voting in February, leftist Luisa Gonz\u00e1lez, a 47-year-old lawyer and single mother, virtually tied<\/a> with the incumbent, Daniel Noboa, the 37-year-old son of a banana tycoon and Ecuador\u2019s youngest-ever elected president, who was favored to win.<\/p>\n As Ecuador has quickly gone<\/a> from one of the safest countries in Latin America to one of the deadliest, security is top of mind<\/a> for voters, followed by unemployment. For both issues, Ecuador\u2019s ties to the United States loom large\u2014and the two candidates offer divergent visions for the country\u2019s most important bilateral relationship.<\/p>\n While Gonz\u00e1lez represents the ideological counterpoint to Donald Trump, Noboa is betting big on the U.S. president. Born in Miami, Florida, and educated in the United States, Noboa was one of the few regional leaders to attend<\/a> Trump\u2019s second inauguration, and his campaign has focused on cracking down on crime with U.S. support.<\/p>\n \u201cNoboa believes he can win based on desperation for security, and that the United States is the only way to do that,\u201d said Guillaume Long, Ecuador\u2019s former foreign affairs minister and a senior research fellow at the Center for Economic and Policy Research. The question ahead of Sunday\u2019s vote is whether Noboa\u2019s ties to Trump will give him the edge he needs\u2014or represent a liability in a neck-and-neck race.<\/p>\n Ecuador\u2019s relationship<\/span> with the United States, the country\u2019s biggest trading partner, has long been important to Ecuadorians. \u201cThey see closeness to the U.S. as a strength,\u201d Beatriz Garc\u00eda Nice, an Ecuador analyst, said.<\/p>\n But bilateral ties have not always been smooth. During former President Rafael Correa\u2019s tenure from 2007 to 2017, relations were marked by Ecuador\u2019s expulsion<\/a> of the U.S. ambassador and other officials after accusing them of meddling in internal affairs; the granting of asylum<\/a> to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who published classified U.S. military documents in 2010; and the closure<\/a> of a U.S. military base in the coastal city of Manta.<\/p>\n Then, in the late 2010s, under President Len\u00edn Moreno, Ecuador\u2019s foreign policy underwent a sharp turn. Moreno\u2019s tenure coincided with the end of the so-called pink tide<\/a>, an era of left-leaning governments in Latin America, as well as with Trump\u2019s first term. Once Correa\u2019s prot\u00e9g\u00e9, Moreno broke with his predecessor and realigned with the United States as he revoked<\/a> Assange\u2019s asylum, renewed security cooperation<\/a> with U.S. entities, and exited<\/a> the Union of South American Nations, a political bloc created largely by leftist leaders.<\/p>\n Moreno was followed by Ecuador\u2019s first conservative president in nearly two decades, Guillermo Lasso, who positioned himself firmly as a U.S.-aligned leader. \u201cNow, there is a renewed closeness between Ecuador and the U.S. based on security cooperation,\u201d Long said. But Noboa has taken bilateral relations with the United States \u201cto an extreme level.\u201d<\/p>\n Noboa won snap elections in October 2023, after Lasso\u2019s decision to dissolve congress amid an impeachment trial against him. Noboa ran<\/a> on a mano dura<\/em> (\u201ciron fist\u201d) platform to confront rising crime in Ecuador, driven partly by<\/a> an expansion and redirection of regional drug-trafficking routes. In just four years, the country\u2019s homicide rate increased<\/a> from 6.9 per 100,000 people in 2019 to 45 per 100,000 in 2023\u2014one of the world\u2019s \u201cfastest, most radical rises in peacetime,\u201d Long said.<\/p>\n Noboa\u2019s campaign platform included plans to criminalize small-scale drug use, invest in surveillance technology, and install floating prisons. Once elected, he quickly made the United States an important part of his security strategy, dubbed Plan F\u00e9nix. The U.S. government has supported the program by providing equipment<\/a>, military cooperation<\/a>, and financial assistance to Ecuadorian security forces.<\/p>\n So far, Noboa\u2019s tough-on-crime approach has not made much of a dent. January and February saw<\/a> a record number of killings, with 781 and 736 violent deaths<\/a>, respectively. Sixty-one percent of Ecuadorians say that their economic situation and personal security have not improved under Noboa, according to a recent poll<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cA [Nayib] Bukele model won\u2019t work in Ecuador,\u201d said Rebecca Bill Chavez, CEO of the Inter-American Dialogue, referring to the Salvadoran president\u2019s hard-line security strategy, which has landed 1.7 percent<\/a> of the population in prison\u2014the highest rate of any country. Chavez added that Ecuador\u2019s violence is related to transnational organized crime groups that require tight intelligence cooperation and will not be solved by mass incarceration.<\/p>\n Nevertheless, Noboa still plans to double down on militarization and mano dura. And he is hoping to use his ties with Trump\u2014which he reportedly forged<\/a> with the help of a family friend, U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.\u2014to do so.<\/p>\n Noboa wants to amend<\/a> Ecuador\u2019s constitution to permit foreign military bases in the country, upending a Correa-era ban. He has also asked Trump to designate local gangs as foreign terrorist organizations, as the U.S. president recently did<\/a> with eight other<\/a> Latin American cartels and criminal gangs. (According to Noboa, Trump said<\/a> that he would consider it.)<\/p>\n Last weekend, Erik Prince, the founder of controversial U.S. security contractor Blackwater, arrived<\/a> on Noboa\u2019s invitation to Guayaquil, one of Ecuador\u2019s most violent cities, to provide support to the country\u2019s military. Prince is a longtime Trump ally who has pushed<\/a> the United States to outsource its deportation program and recently proposed<\/a> a plan to set up a U.S.-run migrant detention center in El Salvador.<\/p>\n Human rights activists have criticized Prince\u2019s trip to Ecuador, which Chavez said could \u201cundermine civilian oversight, basic rights, and the rule of law.\u201d<\/p>\n Altogether, Noboa\u2019s proposals \u201chighlight high levels of improvisation in the country\u2019s security management,\u201d Rivera said. He added that Noboa\u2019s decision to use the United States \u201cas a platform to attract votes\u201d will have extreme consequences\u2014namely, \u201cthe privatization of the war on organized crime.\u201d<\/p>\n Many Ecuadorians do not necessarily see Noboa\u2019s efforts to combat crime as a threat to the country\u2019s sovereignty, Garc\u00eda Nice said. Some are disappointed, however, about Noboa\u2019s inability to use his relationship with Trump to negotiate a special deal to exempt Ecuador from the new 10 percent tariff<\/a> on nearly all U.S. trading partners.<\/p>\n Last month, Noboa reinforced his rapport with Trump during an informal visit to his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida. A few days later, the United States announced its new tariffs, leading Gonz\u00e1lez to mock<\/a> Noboa, saying that her opponent met with Trump and now \u201cthings are worse for us.\u201d<\/p>\n Noboa\u2019s relationship with Trump may not translate into economic advantages, Chavez said. Ecuador has expressed<\/a> interest in a bilateral trade deal, but Chavez said that the Trump administration will always prioritize its own interests first. Still, analysts point out that Gonz\u00e1lez is even less likely to sway Trump\u2019s economic policy.<\/p>\n For her part, Gonz\u00e1lez\u2014who served in Correa\u2019s government\u2014has mostly stayed quiet about Trump, carefully balancing Ecuador\u2019s close ties with the United States with her Citizen Revolution Movement party\u2019s criticism of the U.S. president\u2019s leadership and policies. (She has, however, condemned<\/a> his \u201cinhumane treatment\u201d of Latin American migrants.)<\/p>\n \u201cWith the corre\u00edstas<\/em> [supporters of Correa\u2019s socialist ideology], it will be a more complicated relationship,\u201d Sebasti\u00e1n Hurtado, the director of Quito-based consultancy Pr\u00f3fitas, said. He added that the corre\u00edstas are less transactional than Noboa and driven more by ideology.<\/p>\n Chavez believes that Gonz\u00e1lez could forge her own political identity. \u201cThere is this assumption that she will be like Correa, a replica,\u201d Chavez said. But she points to Moreno as breaking with Correa despite earning his initial support, as well as Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum, who has developed a distinct political platform from that of her mentor and predecessor, Andr\u00e9s Manuel L\u00f3pez Obrador. \u201cGonz\u00e1lez has shown signs of pragmatism,\u201d Chavez said.<\/p>\n Garc\u00eda Nice agreed that though Noboa losing would create some distance in the U.S.-Ecuador relationship, Gonz\u00e1lez would likely try to have a cordial and functional relationship with Trump, taking note of Sheinbaum<\/a>.<\/p>\n Nevertheless, some Ecuadorians remain nervous about how a leftist president may fare against Trump, especially after a recent dispute over deportation flights between Trump and Colombian President Gustavo Petro, which led the former to threaten<\/a> a tariff of up to 50 percent on Colombian imports and visa restrictions for Colombians.<\/p>\n
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