Ecuador’s President Daniel Noboa has revealed that, subsequent month, his nation will begin to impose a 30 p.c “safety tariff” on its neighbour Colombia for failing to include unlawful mining and the trafficking of cocaine.
Wednesday’s announcement echoes related measures taken by United States President Donald Trump, who has criticised Colombia’s left-wing authorities for not pursuing a extra aggressive strategy to drug trafficking.
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In a social media publish, Noboa unveiled the brand new tariff on Colombian imports. He warned that the brand new tax would stay in place till the nation confirmed “an actual dedication to collectively confronting drug-trafficking and unlawful mining on the border”.
“We have now made real efforts to cooperate with Colombia, even whereas going through a commerce deficit exceeding $1bn yearly,” Noboa wrote.
“However whereas we’ve got insisted on dialogue, our army continues to confront felony teams linked to drug trafficking on the border with none cooperation from Colombia. Due to this fact, given the dearth of reciprocity and decisive motion, Ecuador will apply a 30 p.c safety tariff on imports from Colombia beginning February 1.”
Shut ties to Trump
Noboa, 38, is a right-wing chief who has expressed affinity for Trump and his insurance policies.
When Trump was re-elected in 2024, Noboa hailed the victory with a social media publish saying that the “future seems shiny for the Continent”.
And since his personal re-election in 2025, Noboa has backed Trump’s makes an attempt to extend US affect throughout Latin America, most notably championing a failed referendum in November that may have allowed the development of US army bases in Ecuador.
Noboa’s administration has argued that shut cooperation with the US is important to fight violent crime within the nation. However the tight relations have additionally bolstered Trump’s efforts to develop US authority all through the Western Hemisphere.
Twice over the previous 12 months, Noboa has hosted Trump’s Homeland Safety Secretary Kristi Noem: as soon as in July and a second time earlier than the November poll referendum.
“Ecuador has been a wonderful accomplice to the U.S. in our work to cease unlawful immigration, drug trafficking, and smugglers on land and on the seas,” Noem wrote on the time.
Trump has made tariffs a trademark of his second time period in workplace, calling the time period “probably the most lovely phrase” within the dictionary. Since returning to the White Home in January 2025, he has enacted a sweeping tariff marketing campaign, which features a baseline tariff of 10 p.c on practically all buying and selling companions and extra individualised tariffs for sure international locations.
Trump has argued that tariffs shield home industries whereas feeding authorities coffers. He has additionally used the financial penalty as a way of forcing buying and selling companions to undergo coverage calls for.
Final 12 months, for example, Trump threatened the US’s neighbours, Mexico and Canada, with tariff hikes in the event that they didn’t adequately fight drug smuggling and cross-border immigration.
His administration has equally imposed a tariff on China to incentivise the nation to staunch the circulation of fentanyl.
However critics have questioned the legality of Trump’s tariff marketing campaign and its coercive nature. Economists have additionally warned that the tax hikes on imports may lead to increased shopper costs domestically.
Fraying relations with Petro
For his half, Noboa seems to be utilizing the specter of tariffs not solely to pressure compliance with Ecuador’s crime crackdown but additionally to strike again at Colombia’s President Gustavo Petro.
A former insurgent fighter, Petro was elected in 2022 as his nation’s first left-wing president. However he has confronted criticism, each domestically and overseas, about his efforts to fight drug trafficking.
Colombia stays the world’s largest producer of cocaine. In a 2024 report, the United Nations mentioned the nation had seen 10 consecutive years of rising manufacturing potential. Almost 253,000 hectares (645,000 acres) within the nation had been devoted to the cultivation of coca leaves, the uncooked ingredient in cocaine.
Complicating efforts is a six-decade-long inner battle in Colombia. The slow-simmering battle has lengthy pitted authorities forces, right-wing paramilitaries, left-wing rebels and felony networks in opposition to one another.
Since taking workplace, Petro has departed from the heavy-handed crackdowns of his right-wing predecessors, as a substitute choosing a “Whole Peace” plan that entails dialogue with armed rebels and felony teams.
His administration has additionally overseen a shift away from the compelled eradication of coca crops, largely grown by impoverished rural farmers. As a substitute, it has pursued a technique of voluntary crop substitution, whereas attacking the laboratories and amenities that course of the leaf into medicine.
Petro has claimed his technique has resulted within the destruction of practically 18,400 drug-making labs. As well as, final November, his administration claimed to have made Colombia’s largest drug bust in a decade, seizing 14 tonnes of cocaine.
However right-wing figures like Trump have referred to as for “extra aggressive motion” from Colombia. The US president has gone as far as to threaten army motion, saying Petro ought to “watch his a**”.
Variations over crime and politics
Noboa has been amongst Petro’s critics within the area. His election was buoyed, partially, by a pledge to tamp down on Ecuador’s burgeoning crime disaster.
For the reason that COVID-19 pandemic, Ecuador has shed its fame as an “island of peace” in Latin America, as felony exercise spiked.
That development coincided with a steep rise in murders. As of 2024, the suppose tank Perception Crime discovered that Ecuador had a murder charge of 44.6 for each 100,000 individuals, the very best proportion of any South American nation. A complete of seven,062 homicides had been reported that 12 months.
Specialists say the crime wave displays, partially, Ecuador’s strategic place between Colombia and Peru, the world’s second-largest cocaine producer.
However the timing of Noboa’s tariffs has raised questions concerning the president’s motives — and whether or not he was strictly targeted on crime, quite than politics.
On Tuesday, someday earlier than the brand new tariffs had been unveiled, Petro posted on social media a message in assist of Ecuador’s former Vice President Jorge Glas, a left-wing determine.
In 2024, Noboa had authorised a controversial raid on Mexico’s embassy in Quito to arrest Glas on bribery costs. Glas at present resides in a most safety jail, and Petro has accused the Ecuadorian authorities of utilizing “psychological torture” in opposition to the previous politician.
“Simply as I demanded the discharge of political prisoners in Venezuela and Nicaragua, I imagine Jorge Glass must be launched,” Petro wrote on Tuesday.
The Glas case has been a supply of ongoing stress between Petro and Noboa, main some critics to take a position whether or not the tariffs had been, partially, a response to Tuesday’s publish.
Ecuador and Colombia are amongst one another’s prime buying and selling companions, and the brand new taxes are more likely to spur questions on the way forward for regional commerce agreements.
