Ecuador Pulls out of Trade Pact, Offers Human Rights Training to U.S.

In yet another act of defiance to the United States, Ecuador has announced that it will pull out of a preferential trade pact in response to alleged pressure from the U.S. not to grant asylum to former CIA contractor Edward Snowden. Government spokesman Fernando Alvarado announced the decision yesterday morning, saying “Ecuador does not accept pressure or threats from anyone, and does not negotiate its principles or submit them to mercantile interests, as important as they are.”

But the administration of President Rafael Correa did not stop there. Reuters reports:

In a cheeky jab at the U.S. spying program that Snowden unveiled through leaks to the media, the South American nation offered $23 million per year to finance human rights training. 

The funding would be destined to help “avoid violations of privacy, torture and other actions that are denigrating to humanity,” Alvarado said. He said the amount was the equivalent of what Ecuador gained each year from the trade benefits. 

“Ecuador gives up, unilaterally and irrevocably, the said customs benefits,” he said.

President Correa himself later addressed the decision in a speech, in which he accused the U.S. of using renewal of the Andean Trade Promotion with and Drug Enforcement Act (ATPDEA) to blackmail Ecuador into denying Snowden asylum. “Our dignity is priceless,” the Ecuadorean leader said. El Telegrafo reports that he pledged to submit a bill to Congress that will make up for the loss in commerce.

The Washington Post notes that the announcement comes one day after the chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Senator Robert Menendez (D-N.J.), promised to do all he could to block the renewal of ATPDEA. Still, the extent to which Snowden was the determining factor for the trade deal’s demise is unclear, as it was unlikely to be renewed anyway. On June 21, before news of Snowden’s asylum request broke, El Universo reported that a U.S. Embassy official in Quito believed the deal’s renewal seemed “less and less probable.”

The AP reports that yesterday also saw the Ecuadorean government “scrambling” to explain the emergence of a single-page, unsigned letter dated June 22 which claimed to give Snowden the right to travel to Ecuador for political asylum, and asked other countries to allow him safe passage. The letter was leaked by Univision on Wednesday night. According to officials in Ecuador, it was issued by the country’s diplomatic mission in London without the approval of the Foreign Ministry, and is thus invalid.


News Briefs

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