According to the United Nations World Cocaine Report 2023, “Colombia continues to dominate smuggling routes to North America.” Cocaine from Bolivia and Peru is increasingly being transported via the Southern Cone route through Paraguay and the Paraná-Paraguay waterway. Ergo, Ecuador is surrounded by the drug trade, and understandably the United States, the world’s top drug-consuming country, sees an opportunity to tackle the problem from there.
It has been proven that institutions in Latin America alone are unable to combat the cancer of drug trafficking. The President of Ecuador, Daniel Noboa, seems to recognize this shortcoming, he sees himself in the mirror of the brother countries and has decided to take up this fight, which is probably the most difficult next to the eradication of poverty.
The US State Department announced “the delivery of more than 20,000 bulletproof vests and more than $1 million in critical security and emergency equipment.” Likewise, the FBI will increase its personnel in this country to support the Ecuadorian National Police and the Attorney General’s Office.
The Left, for its part, predictably “screamed to heaven.” However, their arguments about “colonialism” and “interventionism” are hardly legitimate. It is precisely they who have contributed – sometimes through their passivity and omission, sometimes through their open participation – to anchoring the drug trade in the social and even institutional framework. For his part, Noboa reveals that the fight against drug trafficking is already one of his government’s biggest challenges.
