BOGOTA, Jan 21 (Reuters) – Ecuador will impose a 30% tariff on goods from Colombia starting from February 1, President Daniel Noboa said on Wednesday, citing a trade deficit and lack of cooperation on fighting drug trafficking at their shared border.
“This measure will remain in place until there is a real commitment to jointly tackle drug trafficking and illegal mining on the border, with the same seriousness and determination that Ecuador is currently demonstrating,” Noboa said on X.
Colombia’s president’s office, trade and foreign ministries told Reuters they were examining the measure.
Noboa has declared several states of emergency and recently mobilized over 10,000 soldiers to the country’s three most violent provinces in a push to tackle organized crime in the Andean nation, which has sent murder rates soaring.
Noboa said Ecuador had not received “any cooperation” and cited an annual trade deficit exceeding $1 billion.
The announcement of tariffs against Ecuador’s larger neighbor follows a 27% tariff on imports from Mexico, Latin America’s No. 2 economy in February of last year.
(Reporting by Sarah Morland in Mexico City and Luis Jaime Acosta in Bogota; Editing by Kylie Madry)
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