By Sarah Morland and Alexandra Valencia
QUITO/BOGOTA, Jan 21 (Reuters) – Ecuador will impose a 30% tariff on goods from Colombia starting February 1, President Daniel Noboa said on Wednesday, 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 defense 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 signaled it could put pressure on Colombia as well as Mexico over drug trafficking through organized 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 mobilized over 10,000 soldiers to the country’s three most violent provinces in a push to tackle organized crime in the Andean nation, which has sent murder rates soaring.
Ecuador also militarized the city of San Lorenzo, in the border area with Colombia, at the end of last year due to violent clashes between criminal groups there.
‘COMPLETE WAR’
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 totaled $838 million, according to Ecuador’s central bank.
Ecuador received 3.6% of Colombia’s exports in November, according to the latest data from Colombia’s statistics agency, making it the country’s sixth-largest export destination. The U.S. was the largest, making up 27.1%.
Ecuador imports electrical power from Colombia, which is crucial in times of drought when hydroelectric dams dry up, as well as medicines and pesticides.
The announcement of tariffs against Ecuador’s larger neighbor follows a 27% tariff on imports from Mexico, Latin America’s No. 2 economy, in February, shortly after the U.S. announced its own tariffs against Mexico.
Relations between Ecuador and Mexico soured over the latter’s asylum for former Vice President Jorge Glas at its embassy in Quito, which Ecuador stormed in 2024, arresting Glas and handing him another lengthy prison sentence on corruption charges.
On Tuesday, Colombian President Gustavo Petro on X shared an image of Glas, who also has Colombian nationality, apparently taken from a video call from prison, saying he showed signs of psychological torture and should be freed.
Glas’ lawyers maintain his innocence and say his physical health has seriously deteriorated and that he has been denied access to medicine and sunlight.
(Reporting by Sarah Morland in Mexico City, Alexandra Valencia in Quito and Luis Jaime Acosta in Bogota; Editing by Kylie Madry, Rod Nickel)
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