Quito/The president of Ecuador, Daniel Noboa, decorated this Wednesday the Secretary of State of the United States (USA), Marco Rubio, at the beginning of his visit to the Andean countrywithin a tour that began on Tuesday in Colombia and that will take him Thursday to Peru.
Noboa awarded Rubio the national order of merit in the degree of grand cross, aimed at people who have performed extraordinary merits for the Ecuadorian nation both in the military and civil fields, the same one that he also awarded in March to Kristi Noem, Donald Trump’s former Secretary of Homeland Security and delegate of the Shield of the Americas initiative.
The Ecuadorian president highlighted and thanked Rubio for his support in intensifying US cooperation in the “war” that since 2024 has been declared against organized crime, whose gangs are blamed for the unprecedented wave of violence that the Andean country is going through.
The president assured that the United States and Ecuador are fully committed to “caring for and preserving the culture of the American continent, saving its values and providing peace not only for the United States but for the entire region, with the same strength and conviction.”
We have managed to work hand in hand with the United States to provide more peace, health and more freedoms not only for our people, but also for the entire continent.
Noboa assured that Rubio “has solved many problems that are difficult to solve,” to the point that “if there is a problem that has no solution, Marco Rubio will find a way to solve it,” thanks to the fact that “he has had different leadership than normal.”
“From Ecuador we will always be grateful for your work and your service. We have managed to work hand in hand with the United States to provide more peace, health and more freedoms not only for our people, but also for the entire continent. I hope to have you in Ecuador more times visiting us and accompanying us in this fight to change the continent,” he concluded.
For his part, Rubio recalled that this is the third time he has met with Noboa, and the second time he has done so at the Carondelet presidential palace, in Quito, where he was already in September of last year.
The Secretary of State noted that “relations between the United States and Ecuador have improved in recent years, especially in the last three or four years, in security cooperation and also in other issues that are not so important.”
“The main objective of the Government of Ecuador is the security of its people, and when we see threats to their security, we have to work. (Noboa) is doing that in a formidable way,” Rubio said.
“We have the same principles and that is why we will continue to see the strong commitment of President Trump and our administration to help everyone continue working,” he added.
“We are not talking about a typical mafia, we are talking about terrorists who in many cases have weapons and equipment that resemble a national army
After meeting in Quito with Noboa, the Secretary of State announced that the Donald Trump Administration will declare the Ecuadorian criminal gang Los Tiguerones, one of the criminal groups responsible for the unprecedented wave of violence suffered by the Andean country, as a terrorist organization.
The gang will thus become a target of the United States, as are Los Choneros, Los Lobos and Chone Killers, the other three Ecuadorian gangs that are also considered terrorists by the United States.
Los Tiguerones are attributed with actions such as the invasion of an armed group on the TC Televisión channel during a live broadcast in January 2024 and their top leader is William Alcívar, alias Willy, who is free after he was arrested in Spain and his extradition to Ecuador was not finalized.
“We are not talking about a typical mafia, we are talking about terrorists who in many cases have weapons and equipment that resemble a national army. They are not common groups. They participate in common crimes, but they have terrorist capacity, and we must defeat them,” Rubio said in an appearance at the Carondelet Palace, without the option to ask questions.
The US Secretary of State pointed out that an international coalition is required to combat transnational criminal organizations, which is why Trump launched the Shield of the Americas initiative, which so far brings together governments from Latin American countries related to the US president.
“This alliance between our countries is very important, and in the region we do not have a better ally for this than Ecuador,” Rubio asserted.
“Our elite forces are working together daily in a way that is unprecedented to dismantle these groups that are doing so much damage to the region”
“Our elite forces are working together daily in a way that is unprecedented to dismantle these groups that are doing so much damage to the region,” he added.
Rubio’s visit to Ecuador takes place in the midst of a United States bombing campaign against Ecuadorian fishing vessels in the Pacific, under the argument that, according to their intelligence information, they support the “drug boats” that carry large quantities of cocaine from the country’s coasts to North America.
In the last two weeks, six vessels accused by the United States of collaborating with Los Choneros, the oldest criminal gang operating in Ecuador, have been sunk.
The US military presence in Ecuador has also become tangible this week with the arrival of two MV-B22 Osprey aircraft that have participated in an operation in the illegal mining enclave of Alto Punino, in the Ecuadorian Amazon, supposedly controlled by the Border Commandos, a dissident group of the extinct Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).
In that sense, Rubio anticipated that the Trump administration will ask Congress for approval to allocate another 45 million dollars to strengthen the fight against organized crime in Ecuador and confirmed an allocation exclusively of 10 million dollars to combat illegal mining, “which is stealing the country’s wealth.”
He also announced that the United States will deliver to Ecuador a new 61-foot (about 30 meters) long U.S. Coast Guard vessel, as well as five more interceptors, for a total of twelve vessels delivered this year to reinforce the country’s maritime capacity against these organizations.
