Left-wing Ecuadorean firebrand Rafael Correa made throwing the “Yankees” out of Ecuador a campaign promise in 2006. But one of South America’s worst coronavirus outbreaks has his successor welcoming U.S. military assistance and promising defense purchases, however unlikely.
Bodies of COVID-19 victims lined the streets of coastal Guayaquil in April.
By the end of May, Ecuador reported some 38,000 coronavirus cases and more than 3,300 deaths.
The stark numbers for a nation of 17 million led U.S. Southern Command to send personal protective equipment, disinfectant, and medical supplies to cities across Ecuador, including Manta, which formerly hosted U.S. troops.
President Trump even highlighted his relationship and assistance to the Andean nation on Twitter.
“They are fighting hard against CoronaVirus!” Trump tweeted April 24 after a conversation with current Ecuadorean leader Lenin Moreno, vice president under Correa.
“We will be sending them desperately needed Ventilators,” Trump wrote, praising Moreno, who once espoused socialism and was named after a founder of the Soviet Union.
But humanity was not the only factor in Trump’s promise to help stem the coronavirus in Ecuador.
“This is a transactional administration, and this is the way it operates,” said Michael Shifter, president of the Washington-based think tank Inter-American Dialogue.
“If you look at Latin America, it’s probably the relationship that has changed most significantly for the better, partly because relations were so bad under Correa, and there was such tension and confrontation,” Shifter told the Washington Examiner.
Miami-based Southcom confirmed to the Washington Examiner that more than $150,000 in coronavirus assistance has been provided in 10 humanitarian projects with Ecuador, which a decade ago hosted 100 monthly Air Force E-3 Sentry airborne warning and control systems, or AWACS, and Navy P-3 Orion counter-narcotics flights.
The flights departed from a heavily U.S.-financed Ecuadorean Pacific airbase in Manta, the only permanent U.S. presence in South America.
Correa allowed the Manta basing agreement to expire in 2009 and booted the 300 U.S. troops out. He also closed the U.S. Embassy in Quito’s security assistance office and even wrote into a new constitution that Ecuador will no longer host foreign troops.
All that helped populist Correa win an election.
But that’s back when oil prices were $100 a barrel and “21st-century socialism” was all the rage in the hemisphere.
Not so socialist anymore
With Correa facing corruption charges in exile in Belgium and Moreno hoping to survive his last year in office, Ecuador’s tune has changed.
In 2018, the U.S. security assistance office in Quito reopened.
Last year, Moreno allowed British police to enter its London embassy and arrest WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who now faces an extradition request from the United States.
And in February, Trump hosted Moreno at the White House.
The president gushed after the meeting with Moreno, boasting to the press how the two discussed counter-narcotics cooperation and “the purchase of a lot of our military equipment.”
“That’s a bluff,” said Ecuadorean security analyst Dr. Fredy Rivera, who gave the Washington Examiner a Spanish-language phone interview from Quito Monday.
“Our purchases are small,” he said. “What we need is repair parts and technology for Humvees … and some special rations and batteries for jungle combat.”
Rivera said Ecuador’s military purchases from the U.S. are tactical and fill momentary needs, not strategic ones. Meanwhile, Ecuador’s military is dominated by Chinese equipment and technology.
“That’s why the U.S. is interested,” said Rivera, noting a Chinese donation of an additional eight patrol boats in 2019. “Ecuador is very indebted by Chinese loans.”
The February White House visit and the promise to buy American arms were meant to shake loose agricultural trade preferences to lift Ecuador’s faltering economy, Rivera explained.
Instead, Ecuador is getting a lifeline of medical supplies, and the U.S. is getting a helpful security partnership.
Orion surveillance flights restarted at least a year ago, this time operated by U.S. Customs and Border Protection.
The flights gather intelligence over a large swath of ocean in the eastern Pacific that forms a triangle between Manta, Guayaquil, and the Galapagos Islands.
Rivera said CBP uses civilian airports in all three locations but barely shares any of the gathered intelligence with Ecuador’s police force, which has responsibility for fighting the illegal drug trade.
“There isn’t the level of trust yet,” he said of some elements of the vast police force, which at over 20,000 outnumbers the military.
Shifter said the coronavirus has allowed Southcom and the Trump administration to flow assistance to friendly countries in the hemisphere that support U.S. policies.
“There is a certain favoritism, I don’t think all countries are equal,” he said. “Ecuador breaking with Correa and pursuing more moderate policies, this fits with the transactional approach.”
Twenty-three countries in the region have received more than $1.5 million in coronavirus-related donations from Southcom’s humanitarian assistance programs. All products were purchased from host-country suppliers so to not impact DOD’s supply chain.
Among those receiving aid, said Shifter, are countries that have supported the president’s tough stance on immigration and hard line on the regime in Venezuela, such as Honduras and El Salvador, which also accept flights of returned migrants.
For Ecuador, the counter-narcotics flights and renewed security partnership are constitutionally dubious, said Rivera, but strategically important for a flailing president in a pandemic and economic crisis.
“In this new relationship, there are many criticisms,” he added. “The coronavirus is subjugating other processes; people are worried about health, not defense.”
