Petro reiterates call to Noboa to discuss the fight against drug trafficking and tariffs

The President of Colombia, Gustavo Petro, reiterated this Wednesday to his Ecuadorian counterpart, Daniel Noboa, the offer of a dialogue to address common problems, including drug trafficking and the tariff war in which the two countries are immersed. “And I then offer him that possibility of us talking,” Petro said, addressing Noboa, whom he met today in Panama at the opening of the Latin America and the Caribbean International Economic Forum, organized by the Development Bank of Latin America and the Caribbean – CAF, which brings together eight leaders from the region with the aim of finding new ways for its insertion into the global arena. On January 21st, Noboa announced that starting February 1st, Ecuador will apply a 30% tariff to imports from Colombia due to the alleged “lack of reciprocity and firm actions” in the fight against drug trafficking on the border.

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According to Petro, the war on drugs “has not served to stop drug trafficking”, which in his opinion, “grows, grows and grows, and is not regional, President Noboa, it is global and universal”. “The cocaine they buy from Colombia on the Venezuelan border or on the Ecuadorian border or in other places is not from Colombian mafias, the buyers, I couldn’t even say it’s from Latin American mafias, it’s an international multinational,” he added. In that illicit business “there are Latinos, there are Albanians, there are French, there are Swedes, there are Germans, Spaniards, there are North Americans, there are Mexicans and there are Americans”, Petro pointed out, who stressed that “the path” in that fight “is police integration”. “He is a more powerful enemy that we can only fight if we combine intelligence,” he stated. Border fight The president added that between Colombia and Ecuador there is “one of the great drug borders” and that is why “we must necessarily build police integration and it is not only Ecuadorian and Colombian that we already have, but open it, to be relatively effective, although there are discussions about it”.

Following the Ecuadorian announcement of tariffs, the Colombian Government appealed to the principle of reciprocity and imposed a 30% surcharge on more than 50 Ecuadorian products, a list that will be expanded soon, in addition to suspending the sales of electrical energy to its southern neighbor.

Ecuador retorted on Monday with a new measure, increasing the transportation fee for Colombian crude oil through the Trans-Ecuadorian Pipeline System (SOTE) from three to 30 dollars. Last Saturday, Petro expressed for the first time his willingness to meet with Noboa to discuss the joint fight against drug trafficking, which was the bone of contention with Ecuador. “Whenever Ecuador wants, we can meet, but the first point I want to be examined on the bilateral agenda is the construction of a joint policy for the control of maritime ports,” Petro said on his X account. Colombian Chancellor Rosa Villavicencio said yesterday that a meeting between Petro and Noboa was proposed to Ecuador today in Panama, but that they had not received a response to that request. In Petro’s agenda in Panama City today, three bilateral meetings are scheduled, but with the presidents of Brazil, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, and Guatemala, Bernardo Arévalo de León, and with the Prime Minister of Jamaica, Andrew Holness.