Ecuador will impose a 30 per cent tariff on goods from Colombia starting February 1, President Daniel Noboa said yesterday, citing a trade deficit and lack of cooperation on fighting drug trafficking at their shared border.
“This measure will remain in place until there is a real commitment to jointly tackle drug trafficking and illegal mining on the border, with the same seriousness and determination that Ecuador is currently demonstrating,” Noboa said on X.
Colombia’s president’s office, trade and foreign ministries told Reuters they were examining the measure. Shortly after Noboa’s announcement, Colombia’s defence ministry said it had seized a shipment of marijuana at the shared border during a joint operation between both countries’ militaries.
The United States has also signalled it could put pressure on Colombia as well as Mexico over drug trafficking through organised crime in their countries, following its dramatic January 3 attack on Caracas and capture of President Nicolas Maduro, whom Washington accused of being a “narco-dictator.” Noboa has made the fight against crime a cornerstone of his administration. He has declared several states of emergency and recently mobilised over 10,000 soldiers to the country’s three most violent provinces in a push to tackle organised crime in the Andean nation, which has sent murder rates soaring.
Speaking at Davos on Tuesday, Noboa said his nation was fighting “a complete war against evil and narco-terrorism.”
Noboa said Ecuador had not received “any cooperation” and cited an annual trade deficit exceeding $1 billion. The deficit in the first 10 months of last year totalled $838m, according to Ecuador’s central bank.
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