Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa and Bolivian President Evo Morales are seen here at a pro-union event. USAID’s departure from Ecuador marks the second time this year that the agency has been forced out of a South American country after Pres. Morales ousted it from Bolivia in May
USAID expects to close its doors in Ecuador by September 2014 due to an increasingly acrimonious relationship with President Rafael Correa. This comes six months after it was kicked out of Bolivia.
“This is both another sign that relations between the US and Ecuador are in some ways continuing to deteriorate, but also that US influence in the region isn’t what it used to be,” says Steve Striffler, a professor of Latin American studies at the University of New Orleans who studies Ecuador. “These countries are able to carve out independence from the US in a way they weren’t in the past.
“The idea they would have kicked out USAID 10 or 15 years ago is unimaginable,” Mr. Striffler says.
The US government’s reputation in the region has taken a series of hits in recent months, with revelations that the National Security Agency (NSA) spied on the leaders of Brazil and Mexico.
President Correa has made no secret of his disdain for US officials who he sees as overreaching their diplomatic duties and meddling in domestic affairs. In 2011, he kicked out the US ambassador for comments made in a diplomatic cable published by WikiLeaks that said Correa might have been aware of high-level police corruption. A year later, he granted asylum to the face of WikiLeaks, Julian Assange, who is still holed up in Ecuador’s London embassy.
“In some ways these actions, and the [USAID decision] can be put in there too, are intended to say that we are an independent sovereign nation,” Striffler says. “In the perspective of many in Latin America, and with good reason, USAID is seen as an agent of US imperialism.”