Part
4 - Security Cooperation and Free Trade: Re-establishing U.S.
Hegemony
Diplomatic
relations between Ecuador and the U.S. had deteriorated severely
under Correa’s government. But that wasn’t the result of Correa’s
whim, but of over two decades of social mobilization in rejection of
U.S. foreign policy in Ecuador and the region, especially its
military expansion and promotion of Free Trade Agreements (FTA).
It has
been over 10 years since social movements, organized civil society
and progressive governments in Latin America effectively defeated the
U.S.-sponsored Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA).
However,
today “there is more pressure from Ecuador’s government to the
U.S. government to sign a trade agreement… and it is not necessary
to bolster exports because many Ecuadorean products are already
entering the U.S. with no tariffs,” David Suarez explains.
Pence
didn’t visit Moreno to sign an FTA, but because he has been tasked
with gaining hemispheric support for the U.S. campaign against
Venezuela and with paving the way for greater military control over
the region. “Ecuador gains regional relevance in that sense,”
Suarez affirms.
The U.S.
might be swayed into accepting an FTA with Ecuador, but it will come
at a cost for the country and the region; a cost the Ecuadorean
government has already started to pay.
Ecuador
played a leading role in the efforts to rid the region of U.S.
military presence through the promotion of regional military
cooperation within Unasur.
This
year, the U.S. managed to get its Office for Security Cooperation
re-invited after offering Moreno help in dealing with a series of
attacks and kidnappings in Ecuador’s northern border with Colombia.
Correa had expelled the Office in 2014 arguing it had gained undue
influence over Ecuador’s national security institutions, including
the military and the police.
Pence
thanked Moreno for this gesture during his visit.
One of
the U.S. most significant diplomatic victories thus far has been to
plunge Unasur, the only regional integration body with no U.S.
presence, into a crisis, when six U.S. allies and members of the Lima
Group announced their “temporary” withdrawal.
Ecuador
was one of the other six members that remained, which is also
Unasur’s host country, but that has since changed. On July 5
President Moreno announced he was asking “Unasur to return that
building so it can be better used.” Later that day he announced
the building would be given to the National Confederation of
Indigenous Nationalities to house the intercultural university
Amawtay Wasi, which was shut down in 2013 for not meeting standards
of quality.
According
to former Unasur chief Ernesto Samper, Unasur’s South American
Defense Council played a crucial role in the region’s push back
against foreign military bases in South America and U.S. military
hegemony.
Moreno’s
latest decisions consolidate the U.S. victory over the project of
sovereign South American integration.
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