The Ecuadorian government of Daniel Noboa has announced the imposition of a 30% tariff on Colombian goods as a move to pressure its northern neighbor to tighten border security.
The Noboa government cited the illicit mining trade, increased cocaine trafficking, and a failure to cooperate on bilateral security initiatives across the shared national border as reasons to enact a “security tariff” on a variety of Colombian exports, set to go into effect next month.
Some of the goods that could be subject to the increase in duty costs are electricity, cars, medicine, and sugar products. Recent data indicate that Colombia exported $1.7 billion in goods through November 2025.
Ecuador currently retains an $800+ million trade deficit with its Colombian neighbors.
Noboa issued the announcement via social media, warning that the import duty will remain in place until Colombia shows “a real commitment to jointly confronting drug-trafficking and illegal mining at the border.”
The conservative Noboa has sparred with his left-wing counterpart in Bogotá, Gustavo Petro, in recent months, stemming from disagreements over how to counteract the criminal drug trafficking networks operating via lucrative drug routes connecting Colombia and Ecuador.
Petro, a former guerrilla with the M-19 rebel group, has chosen to take a course of dialogue and national reconciliation with the drug gangs. Noboa, on the other hand, has increased defense spending and bolstering his national security apparatus as part of a tough-on-crime approach for which the 38-year-old was elected by voters in 2023.
President Noboa has also entered into bilateral security agreements with the Trump administration and U.S. Secretary of State Kristi Noem, and European partners in Italy and Great Britain as part of efforts to coordinate on security to crack down on criminal drug trafficking networks that use Ecuador’s Pacific port city of Guayaquil as a transit hub for cocaine traffic destined for the United States and Europe.
The announcement of increased tariffs by the Ecuadorian government earned a quick response from officials in the Petro administration.
Edwin Palma Egea, Colombia’s Minister of Energy, called the tariffs an act of “economic aggression”, adding on X, “We maintained energy sales to Ecuador when its system needed it most.”
Egea also pointed out that Colombia, too, has been subjected to the plague of criminal drug organizations, stating: “Colombia has not been immune to the malicious attacks by drug trafficking groups in the southwest of the country,” but also reminding his counterparts that “...dialogue between nations is essential, not unilateral measures that only harm our peoples.”
