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ICYMI: Rubio: Stand with Ecuador against Narco-terrorists

Jan 19, 2024 | Comunicados de Prensa

The US must stand with Ecuador against narco-terrorists

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

January 19, 2024

The Hill

…Things aren’t looking good [in Ecuador]. As I write, four police officers have been kidnapped, two have been killed, the lawyer prosecuting TC Television’s invaders has been assassinated, dozens of prisoners have escaped from their cells, and the people of Ecuador are mostly hiding indoors as soldiers patrol the streets of the country’s largest city, Guayaquil….

I traveled to Guayaquil and Quito last February and knew that the nation had to confront many challenges. But the destabilizing influence of Venezuela’s narco-regime, combined with the soft-on-crime policies of both Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador and Colombian President Gustavo Petro, has empowered cartels to make new inroads into the strategically located equator state. 

What should be the role of the U.S. in all this? First, we must stand by President Noboa and his administration…. Congress passed the bipartisan U.S.-Ecuador Partnership Act in December 2022, which authorized a comprehensive diplomatic strategy to strengthen our commercial and security relations with Ecuador….

To improve the situation, we should consider working with Ecuador to update the crimes that qualify for the extradition of criminals to the U.S. As history shows, drug lords have long feared U.S. prisons more than those in Latin America. The current U.S.-Ecuador extradition treaty is insufficient for these troubled times and must be updated….

Finally, the U.S. must abandon any attempts to appease the international actors aiding and abetting Ecuador’s narco-terrorists and organized criminal groups, namely Venezuela’s dictatorship….

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