The Ecuador-Colombia Trade Spat Is a Zero-Sum Game
Both countries stand to lose as their economies take hits and criminal groups benefit from a breakdown in cooperation.
QUITO—At the Rumichaca International Bridge, the main artery connecting Ecuador and Colombia, there has been an “unusual, almost disquieting silence,” according to local media. This stillness is the result of a diplomatic rupture that has spiraled into a full-blown trade and energy war between the two countries. Since the last major bilateral crisis in 2008, the underlying tragedy remains the same: a border defined by cocaine, a relationship held hostage by the personal political calculations of presidents, and a region increasingly squeezed by the geopolitical ambitions of the United...
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