By Alexandra Valencia
QUITO Dec 15 (Reuters) – The United States has canceled aid
to Ecuador worth $32 million over the coming years after
long-running disputes with the government of socialist President
Rafael Correa, according to U.S. officials.
Correa, a U.S.-trained economist, has often been at odds
with Washington since winning power in 2007. He accuses the U.S.
government of trying to undermine him and this year Ecuador
renounced U.S. trade benefits dating from the early 1990s.
According to a U.S. State Department spokesperson, Ecuador
recently informed the U.S. Agency for International Development
(USAID) it could not undertake new activities or extend existing
ones without an accord governing bilateral assistance. This led
to the U.S. decision to cancel the aid.
“Our planned $32 million in assistance programs for the
coming years would have allowed us to partner with Ecuadoreans
to achieve their own development goals in critical areas,” said
a letter dated Dec. 12 from USAID to Ecuador seen by Reuters.
Ecuadorean government officials had no immediate comment.
The USAID letter said that in 60 years of working together,
more than $800 million in development aid had helped hundreds of
thousands of Ecuadoreans.
A spokesperson for the U.S. Embassy in Quito said two years
of negotiations failed to reach a new agreement.
“USAID had begun incurring significant costs for four
recently launched projects (focused on environmental protection
and civil society strengthening) which have been unable to
proceed,” the embassy spokesperson said.
“Their cancellation was the only fiscally prudent option.”
Correa, a vocal member of a bloc of left-wing Latin American
leaders, won re-election in a landslide early this year after
generous state spending on infrastructure and health services.
He has irked investors with his anti-capitalist rhetoric,
and this year he passed a controversial law creating a state
media watchdog that critics denounced as a blow to free speech.
Correa says it enshrines principles of balance.
In 2011, Ecuador expelled the U.S. ambassador to Quito after
American diplomatic cables published by WikiLeaks alleged that
Correa’s government had turned a blind eye to police corruption.
Last year, he threatened to expel USAID from the country,
alleging that it was funding local groups that he said sought to
undermine the region’s “progressive” governments.
In May, Bolivia’s socialist President Evo Morales expelled
USAID in protest after U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry
referred to Latin America as Washington’s “backyard.”
Ties between Washington and Ecuador were strained again this
year after Correa said he would consider offering asylum to the
fugitive former U.S. intelligence contractor Edward Snowden.
Last year, Correa granted asylum to WikiLeaks’ founder
Julian Assange, saying they were both victims of persecution.
Assange is holed up in Ecuador’s embassy in London.
(Additional reporting by Ezra Fieser in Santo Domingo and David
Adams in Miami; Writing by Daniel Wallis; Editing by Kieran
Murray and Christopher Wilson)
