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A top US official has announced that the US will provide multiple Coast Guard vessels to Ecuador and push Congress to approve $45 million in security funding.
Getting into it: During his visit to Quito on Wednesday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the administration will ask Congress for $45 million in security aid for Ecuador, plus $10 million more to go after gang recruitment, illegal gold mining and criminal financing. The US will also provide a 110-foot Coast Guard cutter and five interceptor vessels to Ecuador’s navy, on top of seven already sent this year.
In addition, Rubio announced sanctions on seven one-time Ecuadorian officials tied to bribery allegations and designated Los Tiguerones, one of Ecuador’s biggest criminal groups, a foreign terrorist organization over drug trafficking and its role in the armed takeover of a TV station mid-broadcast in 2024.
Rubio, who met with President Daniel Noboa, called Ecuador Washington’s most aggressive partner in the fight against organized crime. “We have no better ally in the region when it comes to confronting the transnational criminal threat,” he said. “These are not ordinary groups. Clearly, they engage in common crime, but they have terrorist capabilities across the region, and that must be confronted. They must be dismantled, they must be defeated, and we are committed to doing that.” Noboa, in turn, honored Rubio with the Grand Cross of the National Order of Merit, which ranks among Ecuador’s top honors.
The secretary also pushed back on criticism of Operation Southern Spear, the US boat strike campaign, saying the strikes are now carried out jointly with Ecuador and that targets are decided on a strike-by-strike basis. “Our goal is not to go after fishermen. Our goal is to go after drug traffickers,” he said.
The campaign has now killed more than 220 people and hit roughly 70 boats in about a year of strikes across the Caribbean and eastern Pacific. Critics, including rights organizations and several of the region’s heads of state, have labeled the strikes extrajudicial killings. Three attacks this year involved fishermen from Ecuador’s Manabí province, and the US has not claimed responsibility for those strikes. Surviving crew members have since described to Reuters what happened to them.
