Introduction

In the contemporary history of relations between Ecuador and Colombia, there has hardly been a level of political tension as significant as the one observed today. Despite sharing a long border and maintaining historical ties in the cultural, economic, and social spheres, the bilateral relationship has been marked by cycles of cooperation and conflict determined by ideological divergences, development models, and regional geopolitical reconfigurations (Tickner, 2007; Pardo & Cardona, 2019).

Beyond the diplomatic junctures, this relationship can be understood as part of a structural dispute over sovereignty, security, dependency and regional order. In this context, it is possible to analyse these tensions from multiple angles. From classical realism, for example, Hans Morgenthau (1948) proposed that states act in the national interest and the preservation of power within a competitive international system. This perspective allows us to understand that the tensions between the two countries do not respond only to contingent events, but to strategic calculations inscribed in correlations of power.

In this context, bilateral relations are also influenced by the interests of national and transnational oligarchies, which may see in the conflict an opportunity to demonstrate their capacity to influence the region. This position can be analyzed in the light of the neorealism of Kenneth Waltz (1979), who argues that state behavior is conditioned by the structure of the international system. Under this reading, bilateral relations between the two countries are crossed by systemic pressures derived from global geopolitical competition, particularly due to the historical influence of the United States in matters of hemispheric security.

This alignment is not only recent, but also responds to a process of reassurance of raw materials and natural resources by the United States in the region, in a context where its influence is challenged by China’s growing presence and by the relative weakening of its economy in a multipolar global scenario. In dialogue with these considerations, the peripheral realism approach of Carlos Escudé (1992) can be incorporated, particularly useful for analyzing the patterns of subordinate alignment of Latin American countries vis-à-vis hegemonic powers. From this perspective, certain recent Ecuadorian foreign policy decisions can be interpreted as strategies of dependent insertion into a regional security architecture led by Washington. This is evidenced by the constant visits of U.S. officials to Ecuador and the strengthening of bilateral cooperation within the framework of hemispheric relations.

The current fracture between Ecuador and Colombia is not only due to short-term diplomatic disagreements, but also to a regional geopolitical reconfiguration in which hegemonic disputes, border securitization processes, dynamics of structural dependency and a crisis of state sovereignty converge. In this context, Ecuador’s international alignments can be interpreted as part of peripheral insertion strategies in the global system.

In the economic sphere, Ecuador and Colombia have historically maintained relations of interdependence. However, these can be critically analyzed from the theory of dependence, particularly in relation to the dynamics of global trade and the appropriation of strategic resources by hegemonic powers. André Gunder Frank (1967) argued that underdevelopment is not a stage prior to development, but the structural result of relations of dependence. This perspective is pertinent to analyze how extractive economies, drug trafficking, and financial subordination produce new forms of regional dependence.

However, the expansion of drug trafficking in Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru suggests that the agency’s framework is also linked to transnational organized crime circuits. In the case of Ecuador, the economies associated with drug trafficking are estimated at approximately 6 billion dollars per year (Primicias, 2024), which, according to various specialists, implies a significant influence on national banks, public institutions, political parties, state security agencies, illegal mining, money laundering, arms and human trafficking. From this perspective, the Ecuadorian economy is conditioned both by the circulation of illicit capital and by the interference of hegemonic powers and their mechanisms of coercion, such as the International Monetary Fund and the holders of Ecuadorian debt bonds.

Under this logic, Ecuador and Colombia occupy peripheral positions within the global dynamics of accumulation, security, and geopolitical subordination. This condition makes them particularly vulnerable both to parallel economies associated with drug trafficking and to the influence of external political agendas. In line with what Immanuel Wallerstein (2004) proposes, the capitalist world-system organizes hierarchies between center, semi-periphery and periphery and from that place on the playing field its interests and demands are articulated (Bourdieu, 2002).

For his part, Theotonio Dos Santos (1970) complements this approach by pointing out that dependence is not only economic, but also political and strategic. This allows us to interpret border security, military cooperation, and U.S. influence as dimensions of contemporary dependence. In this way, the recent tensions can be understood as part of an influence strategy that operates through scenarios of economic pressure and political conflict. 

Rupture and Ecuador-Colombia security policies

In 2006, Colombia implemented an extensive fumigation process in agricultural areas in the south of its territory, within the framework of Plan Colombia, which combined military actions, bombings and the use of glyphosate as a chemical agent to eradicate coca crops.

Glyphosate, used as a herbicide, has been the subject of multiple studies that warn of its risks to human health and the environment, including possible carcinogenic effects, genetic alterations and damage to ecosystems. The fumigation on the Colombian-Ecuadorian border led to a diplomatic conflict when the Ecuadorian government filed its formal protest, which led to the rupture of bilateral relations and a lawsuit before the International Court of Justice in 2008 for damage to human health and border ecosystems.

That same year, one of the most critical episodes in the bilateral relationship took place: the Colombian bombing of Ecuadorian territory in Angostura, ordered by President Álvaro Uribe, which resulted in the death of Raúl Reyes, leader of the FARC. This fact was considered by the Ecuadorian government as a violation of its sovereignty and a diplomatic turning point (Bonilla, 2009). This incident also symbolized the clash between two political-ideological projects: on the one hand, the Colombian Democratic Security policy aligned with the United States; on the other, the autonomist project promoted by the government of Rafael Correa (Ramírez Gallegos, 2010).

In dialogue with this, from critical geopolitics, these dynamics can be understood as disputes over the construction of territorial space. Ó Tuathail (1996) proposes to analyze these conflicts not only as military events, but as discursive struggles to define strategic territories. In this sense, the Colombian-Ecuadorian border is configured as a politically constructed space through narratives of security and transnational threats.

 However, as never before in the history of bilateral relations, the conflict between these two nations has become as evident as it is now. But, unlike previous tensions, this time the ideological profiles have been inverted, reproducing the resistance between the two governments.

The tariff war

From the failure of the Ecuadorian government’s security policies, the narrative was constructed that the growth of insecurity and drug trafficking was due to the abandonment of the northern border by the Colombian government.  President Daniel Noboa demanded that his counterpart pay a border security fee as a “contribution” to the fight on the common border, starting the so-called “tariff war.” Faced with Colombia’s refusal to pay this “tax”, the government of Daniel Noboa increased tariffs on products from the neighboring country to 25%, 50% and 100%.

This measure was interpreted by the government of President Gustavo Petro as a mechanism of economic and political pressure, raising fundamental questions about Noboa’s beneficiaries and political incentives to generate these tensions. In the first place, Colombia is on the verge of an important presidential election, which promises to give the winner to the leftist Iván Cepeda, candidate of the ruling party, displacing the conservative sectors and Colombian oligarchies from power.

Second, Noboa’s ideological and geopolitical alignment with Trump allows us to understand the articulation that he has with respect to a pro-imperial hemispheric agenda.

However, it is worth asking the internal of Ecuador: Who benefits from this rupture?

From a critical perspective, these measures tend to disproportionately affect the most vulnerable sectors, for example, by increasing the price of medicines.  Colombia contributes 15% of the stock of medicines that arrive in Ecuador, and these measures directly affect the Ecuadorian popular sectors. In a scenario of total precariousness of the Ecuadorian health system and the encouragement of the use of private services and health providers. At the same time, certain economic sectors linked to agricultural exports (bananas, cocoa and flowers) concentrated benefits and economic stimuli from the Ecuadorian government. 

In addition, it is important to note that the Noboa government set the Value Added Tax rate at 15% under the pretext of strengthening the country’s security. This tax directly affects basic necessities. In other words, the Ecuadorian government virtually does have sufficient resources to address the problem of insecurity. But it burdens the popular classes with taxes, forgives debts and stimulates the business classes. This can be read in terms of what David Harvey (2005) conceptualizes as accumulation by dispossession.

Critical Security and Disputed Borders

It is particularly complex that, while Ecuador has established itself as a key point in the global distribution of narcotics, and has homicide rates that exceed 50 victims per 100,000 inhabitants. The Ecuadorian government persists in constructing a narrative that locates the exclusive origin of the crisis on the northern border. Not only that, the application of states of emergency and repression of social protest has been normalized (Giorgio Agamben, 2005). Rather, the abuse of this resource becomes authoritarianism, and is very far from contributing to generating trust in society and democracy.

The 16 states of emergency decreed by the Ecuadorian government have not had any results in recent years. Ecuador has gone from being a transit country to becoming a strategic node of criminal economies (Bagley, 2020; Valencia, 2016). Although part of the official discourse has tended to externalize responsibilities to Colombia, various studies suggest that the crisis responds mainly to internal factors such as institutional weakness, structural corruption, and state abandonment (Dammert, 2022; Pontón, 2023). Ecuador faces a crisis as a result of the decline of the State, following the ideology of the “minimal State” (Nozick, 1974). The generalized weakening of institutions and the abandonment of territorial control has been taken advantage of by criminal structures that operate throughout the country and not only on the northern border.

Unfortunately, instead of attacking the structural causes of violence and drug trafficking, the growing securitization of Ecuadorian society (Barry Buzan and Ole Wæver, 1998) has been used to justify the adoption of extraordinary measures, such as militarization, curfews or the expansion of repressive devices. In this sense, security ceases to be merely a multidimensional public policy to become a discursive playing field (Bourdieu, 2022) in which existential threats (real or fictitious) are constructed that appeal to social fear, limiting democratic debate and deliberation.

Finally, we must point out that relations between Ecuador and Colombia are experiencing a new point of tension linked to the reconfiguration of geostrategic international alliances. While Daniel Noboa’s government has shown close alignment with the US strategy, Gustavo Petro’s government has promoted an agenda oriented towards regional autonomy, “total peace” and energy transition (Tokatlian, 2023).

These differences reflect deep disputes between geopolitical projects. From the world-system theory, they can be interpreted as differentiated forms of peripheral insertion; from critical geopolitics, as conflicts over the definition of the regional order. Together, they express tensions between sovereignty, subordination, and autonomy in Latin America. Recent Ecuadorian foreign policy has deepened regional tensions through decisions that have generated friction with various countries and not only with Colombia. As an example we have the conflicts recently generated with: Mexico, Cuba, Russia, Venezuela. From the critical theory of international relations, this behavior can be interpreted as part of a process of geopolitical repositioning. In Carlos Escudé’s terms, these dynamics can be read as peripheral alignment strategies; since Wallerstein, as rearrangements within systemic hierarchies; and from Mignolo and Quijano, as contemporary expressions of the coloniality of power. In this sense, the bilateral crisis transcends the diplomatic and is configured as a manifestation of structural, ideological, discursive and geostrategic disputes around security, sovereignty and regional order.

Conclusions

The relations between Ecuador and Colombia are going through a process of reconfiguration marked by ideological tensions, transformations of the regional order and deep internal crises.

Understanding these dynamics requires going beyond conventional diplomatic readings and incorporating analytical tools from realism, dependency theory, critical geopolitics, critical security, and colonial studies.

From Morgenthau and Waltz to Wallerstein, Buzan, Mbembe and Quijano, a central idea emerges: the border is not only a state limit, but a strategic space where power, violence, sovereignty and models of order are disputed. 

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