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ICYMI: Rubio: Help Ecuador Defeat Gangs

May 22, 2024 | Press Releases

How the United States can help Ecuador defeat narco-terrorism

U.S. Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL)

May 22, 2024

Voz Media

…[A] wave of gang violence…has struck [Ecuador]…. The Ecuadorian government is doing everything in its power to stem the mayhem…. [T]he United States and the international community more broadly can and should offer their support. 

The reason for this is simple: Ecuador’s central location and size make its security and stability critical to the security and stability of the hemisphere as a whole…. [T]he gangs attacking Ecuador work hand in hand with Mexican and Colombian cartels shipping criminals and drugs across our southern border. The more powerful the former become, the more havoc the latter will be able to wreak on American society. 

Thanks to the bipartisan U.S.-Ecuador Partnership Act of 2022, Congress has already established a plan to expand cooperation with Ecuador…. The next steps are to update the United States’ extradition treaty with Ecuador, appropriate more funds for International Narcotics Control and Law Enforcement to assist the South American nation, and require the U.S. Department of Defense to help rebuild the Ecuadorian military…. I am introducing new legislation to accomplish all three goals. 

Meanwhile, I urge the U.S. Department of State to work with the Organization of American States under its Inter-American Democratic Charter to forge an international, hemisphere-wide response to Ecuador’s situation….

Finally, the Biden Administration must deal more firmly with the governments empowering Ecuador’s gangs…. This means ceasing to appease Venezuela’s illegitimate narco-regime…. It also means pressuring Colombian President Gustavo Petro, whose failed “Total Peace” plan has empowered terrorists and cocaine traffickers close to Ecuador’s northern border…. 

Read the rest here.