The presidents Joe Biden and Guillermo Lasso began a meeting this Monday at the White House to talk about “security and economic partnership” between United States and Ecuador, that calls for the cost of the fight against drug trafficking to be shared.
Lasso arrived in Washington with a list of priorities.among which is seeking help for a problem that is bleeding the country dry: crime linked to drug traffickers who fight blood and fire for control of traffic of drugs in the streets and even from prisons.
A fight that has resulted in hundreds of deaths and led in November to declare a state of emergency in part of Ecuador, located between Colombia and Peru, the world’s largest producers of cocaine.
“I think it’s fair to share the bill,” Lasso said Sunday, because “the battle is fought here” but “the beneficiaries are not just the young and Ecuadorian children, but also youth and children from the United States.
To win this battle, Ecuador calculates that it needs 5,000 million dollars.
“We will talk about how we can deepen our security and our economic partnership,” Biden said. this Monday just before the meeting behind closed doors.
Investment programs will be analyzed “to address security needs in Ecuador’s prison systemthe judicial sector and its maritime security,” added the president sitting next to Lasso, next to the fireplace in the Oval Office.
“This is a great opportunity to reaffirm those democratic values, of freedom, of respect for human rights that we share,” For his part, the Ecuadorian president said in what is his second bilateral meeting with Biden, the first in the White House.
“I hope to reaffirm that spirit among allies, to fight for that democracy, that peace, that justice both in our region” as to “support your government’s efforts to achieve those values in the world as well,” he told the US president.
Lasso recalled that Ecuador was the first Latin American country “to condemn Russia’s attack on Ukraine because we believe in multilateralism, we believe in the rule of international law” and regretted that after a pandemic we have to deal with a war. His counterpart thanked him for his “moral leadership”.
– Balancing –
Trade is another of the pillars of Lasso’s visit to Washington.
“We are the only country on the Pacific coast of America that does not have a Free Trade Agreement with the United States. This is important not only in economic matters, but to prevent migratory flows by creating jobs here,” he said on Sunday.
Like other Latin American countries, Ecuador tries to avoid the rivalry between the two great powers by staying on good terms with Washington and taking advantage of the availability of Beijing to take out the wallet.
Ecuador’s first conservative president in 14 years negotiates with Biden without turning our back on China, with which it has “practically closed” a free trade agreement that it has been negotiating for ten months.
For Biden, one of his priorities is the immigration crisis on the border with Mexico, where the authorities have intercepted more than two million of migrants since October 2021, according to the Office of Customs and Border Protection (CBP).
Most are Latin American, but the number of Ecuadorians is low. Even so, it has multiplied so far this year, from about 600 in January to more than 5,000 in September, according to official data.
Some organizations fear an increase in the number of migrants when it is lifted, starting this Wednesdaythe sanitary norm that the US authorities invoke to immediately expel the vast majority of them at the border with Mexico.
In the international arena, the two leaders will explore opportunities for collaboration when Ecuador assumes his mandate in the UN Security Council for the 2023-2024 biennium.
Days before the visit, Ecuador received good news from Washington.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) approved the disbursement of some 700 million dollars for the country after concluding the sixth and last revision of the agreement reached with Quito.
And in the Congress of The United States passed a bipartisan partnership law for fiscal year 2023 which expands cooperation to strengthen democratic institutions, inclusive economic growth, environmental initiatives and the fight against corruption, crime and “malign foreign influence”.
Although this visit puts the finishing touch to his relationship with the United States, internally Lasso navigated troubled waters this year.marked by anti-government demonstrations led by the Conaie indigenous movement, which participated in revolts that led to the fall of three presidents between 1997 and 2005.
They ended up burying the ax of contention, but the discrepancies persist.
