QUITO (Reuters) – The United States has canceled aid to Ecuador worth $32 million over the coming years after long-running disputes with the government of socialist President Rafael Correa, according to U.S. officials.
Correa, a U.S.-trained economist, has often been at odds with Washington since winning power in 2007. He accuses the U.S. government of trying to undermine him and this year Ecuador renounced U.S. trade benefits dating from the early 1990s.
According to a U.S. State Department spokesperson, Ecuador recently informed the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) it could not undertake new activities or extend existing ones without an accord governing bilateral assistance. This led to the U.S. decision to cancel the aid.
“Our planned $32 million in assistance programs for the coming years would have allowed us to partner with Ecuadoreans to achieve their own development goals in critical areas,” said a letter dated Dec. 12 from USAID to Ecuador seen by Reuters.
Ecuadorean government officials had no immediate comment.
The USAID letter said that in 60 years of working together, more than $800 million in development aid had helped hundreds of thousands of Ecuadoreans.
A spokesperson for the U.S. Embassy in Quito said two years of negotiations failed to reach a new agreement.
“USAID had begun incurring significant costs for four recently launched projects (focused on environmental protection and civil society strengthening) which have been unable to proceed,” the embassy spokesperson said.
“Their cancellation was the only fiscally prudent option.”
Correa, a vocal member of a bloc of left-wing Latin American leaders, won re-election in a landslide early this year after generous state spending on infrastructure and health services.
