US Ambassador: Ecuador is Our Long-Time Latin America Ally

The United States now sees Ecuador as one of its allies in Latin America and is willing to strengthen their bilateral ties, as Vice-president Mike Pence's visit showed, stated by U.S. Ambassador in Ecuador, Todd Chapman during a press conference in the coastal city of Guayaquil.

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"Ecuador is our ally in the Americas, it is a long-time friend, we can now express that with more frankness and more substance; (...) We are recovering the time we lost, that's important," Chapman stressed.

Ties between the Ecuadorean Government of Lenin Moreno and the U.S. Government have been strengthening over the past months. In late April, both countries signed a cooperation agreement to fight transnational organized crime and drug trafficking.

Pence's visit to Ecuador was met with warnings from several local social organizations and movements. Among the groups, was the Center for Economic and Social Rights (CDES) in Ecuador warned that  the visit “seeks to align the country to U.S. influence: that turns Ecuador into a territory of war, sign an aggressive free trade agreement, eliminate ‘irritating’ subjects like the Texaco (Chevron) case, and dismantle sovereign regional integration.”

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During the U.S. vice-president's visit to Ecuador, he declared that "the United States and Ecuador ties will be strengthened."

Pence said the progress between the relationship of the two nations segued into a U.S. "cooperation" of US$1.5 million "to fight corruption and strengthen civil society," and US$3.5 million to fight drug-trafficking.

For several analysts, this new arrangement will drag Ecuador into the war on drugs, that has plunged several regional countries into social crises.