With Ecuadorian President Guillermo Lasso by his side, President Joe Biden said Monday the U.S. is looking to expand and strengthen the U.S. relationship with one of its staunchest allies in South America and a country that's getting plenty of attention from China.
Lasso's visit to Washington comes as his tiny nation is on the verge of completing a trade agreement with China, the strongest economic competitor of the United States. China this year surpassed the U.S. as Ecuador's top trading partner on non-petroleum goods.
The already fragile economy in oil-exporting Ecuador was battered by the coronavirus outbreak. One of Lasso's top priorities when he took office last year was to sign a free trade agreement with the United States, joining Colombia and Chile as the only other countries in South America to enjoy such privileged status.
But Biden, in the first two years of his presidency, has shied away from entering new trade pacts as he's focused on first settling a U.S. economy that's been battered by the pandemic, historic inflation and supply chain issues exacerbated by Russia's war in Ukraine.
"Today we're going to keep building on the progress we've made," Biden said at the start of an Oval Office meeting with Lasso. "Together, we've made historic strides."
Lasso met with USAID administrator Samantha Power later Monday and was scheduled to hold talks with CIA Director William Burns, members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and others before returning to Quito on Wednesday.
Republican Senator Marco Rubio, in a letter to the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation CEO Scott Nathan, urged the Biden administration to surge investment into Ecuador to counter China's growing influence in the region.
"While the Biden administration continues to assert that the U.S. is the 'partner of choice' for Ecuador and other Latin American countries, governments and civil society in the region bemoan the lack of American-led, and other Western alternatives, to the Chinese Communist Party's (CCP) current and future investments," Rubio wrote.
The White House, in a statement following the meeting, said the finance corporation was releasing a $13.5 million disbursement to support microfinance loans in Ecuador and said USAID intended to provide $5 million to aid Lasso's initiative to address child malnutrition in his nation.
The alliance has become more important to the U.S. as much of South America has veered to the left, limiting the political space for cooperation with Washington, whose military and political interventions during the Cold War is recalled with bitterness across the region.
The U.S. Senate last week passed a bipartisan bill, the United States-Ecuador Partnership Act, which seeks to expand bilateral cooperation on the economy, security and environmental conservation. The effort is part of the annual defense bill that awaits Biden's signature.
Among its provisions are a promise to transfer two excess U.S. Coast Guard cutters to help Ecuador patrol the protected waters around the Galapagos Islands, where China's distant-water fishing fleet has become an unwelcome presence.
"Without a doubt, yes, we have been allies for decades now," Lasso said. "And I am here to reaffirm that theory that we share among us as allies in our fight for democracy, peace and justice — not only in the region but also to support your vision throughout the world."
While the Biden administration says it is invested in Ecuador's success, Lasso confronts a long list of major challenges. Chief among them is the growing influence of criminal gangs — which have been behind recent prison riots — and an economy pegged to the U.S. dollar that has struggled to compete with cheaper production costs in neighboring countries.
Eric Farnsworth, a vice president of the Council of Americas in Washington, said the U.S. would be wise to provide meaningful assistance to Ecuador, which he described as a "strong democracy in a troubled neighborhood," whether it's from criminal gangs in Colombia or ongoing unrest in Peru.
"He needs help, and the U.S. is in a position to provide some," said Farnsworth, who nonetheless thinks it is too early for the U.S. to commit to a free trade agreement. "Hopefully he will return to Quito with more than just praise."
Lasso told reporters after meeting with Biden that they spent much of their roughly hour-long conversation talking about migration.
A U.S. court has ordered that immigration authorities can no longer quickly expel prospective asylum seekers. Title 42, as it's called, has been used more than 2.5 million times to expel migrants since March 2020. The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday issued an order temporarily blocking the lower court order to lift pandemic-era restrictions on asylum seekers.
Ecuadorians represent only a fraction of the more than 2.7 million migrants encountered on the southwest border in the last fiscal year, but their numbers have been steadily rising since the coronavirus pandemic.
