Colombian and Ecuadorian merchants and truckers protest escalating trade war between both nations

QUITO, Ecuador (AP) — Colombian and Ecuadorian truckers and merchants gathered at a border crossing Tuesday to protest an escalating trade war between both South American countries.

Protesters called for their governments to eliminate 30% tariffs on dozens of goods, warning the levies will hurt the economy of border provinces and affect energy companies on both sides of the border.

Tariffs “generate crises, they don’t help the economy,” said Carlos Bastidas, president of an Ecuadorian transportation workers association. “With this protest we are hoping that both presidents eliminate those measures” and establish mechanisms for dialogue, he added.

Ecuadorian President Daniel Noboa last month announced 30% tariffs on Colombian goods, citing concerns that Bogota has failed to sufficiently curb the flow of cocaine across their shared border.

Noboa, a conservative who has sought to deepen ties with the Trump administration, described the tariffs as a “security tax,” and wrote on social platform X that they would be in place until Colombia took “firm actions” to fight drug cartels.

Colombia countered by imposing 30% tariffs on dozens of Ecuadorian goods — including rice and car parts — and said it would stop selling electricity to its neighbor. Ecuador relies heavily on hydroelectric power and suffered from serious power outages in 2024. Reciprocal tariffs took effect on Feb. 1.

Despite their shared border, neither country is each other’s main trading partner, and both produce similar goods, including coffee, flowers, bananas and oil.

Trade between both countries was worth approximately $2.3 billion last year, according to Colombia’s statistics agency, with Colombia sending about $1.7 billion worth of goods to Ecuador, a nation that has about one third of Colombia’s population.

However, trade between both countries is significant for the economies of cities along the border.

On Tuesday, Edison Mena, president of a Colombian truckers association in the border city of Ipiales, said that 38% of his city’s economy depends on commerce with Ecuador.

Critics of Noboa have argued that the 38-year-old president launched the trade war with Colombia to cover up his own government’s shortcomings.

Noboa’s tariffs announcement came the same week Ecuador’s Interior Ministry published crime stats for the country indicating it had a homicide rate of 50 murders per 100,000 residents in 2025 — the highest in the nation’s recent history.

Ecuador’s homicide rate has quintupled since 2020, as drug gangs from Mexico, Colombia and further afield, fight for control of the nation’s ports. The once peaceful South American nation has become a major transit point for cocaine produced in Colombia and Peru.

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