Ecuador and Colombia are forced to call a tariff truce.
Chances are, if you’re involved with or even mildly interested in politics, you’ve seen The West Wing; and, if you haven’t, you should probably watch it. At the very least, watch Season 2, Episode 16, “Somebody’s Going to Emergency, Somebody’s Going to Jail.” In the midst of a protest against the expansion of the World Trade Organization, White House Communications Director Toby Ziegler delivers a little soundbite that has been shared a lot in recent years:
You want the benefits of free trade? Food is cheaper. Food is cheaper, clothes are cheaper, steel is cheaper, cars are cheaper, phone service is cheaper. You feel me building a rhythm here? That’s ’cause I’m a speechwriter and I know how to make a point. It lowers prices, it raises income. You see what I did with “lowers” and “raises” there? It’s called the science of listener attention. We did repetition, we did floating opposites, and now you end with the one that’s not like the others. Ready? Free trade stops wars. And that’s it. Free trade stops wars! And we figure out a way to fix the rest!
Toby’s “one that’s not like the others”—free trade stops wars—is a bit more simple than the nuanced reality of international trade’s impact on nations’ relations with one another; but it certainly seems as though the institutions, if not the principles, of free trade have actually managed to resolve diplomatic tension between two Latin American countries—Ecuador and Colombia.
After a recent Andean Community (CAN) ruling, Ecuador and Colombia have been forced into a climbdown from an escalating trade war that has been heating up since the beginning of 2026..
The escalation began in January when Daniel Noboa, President of Ecuador, announced a 30% tariff on all Colombian products—labeling it as a “security fee” given Colombia’s “failing to contain illegal mining and the trafficking of cocaine” and citing the Colombian government’s apparent “lack of reciprocity and firm action” on border drug trafficking. In return, Colombian President Gustavo Petro denied the accusations and promised a retaliatory, equivalent 30% tariff on all Ecuadorian goods, whilst also temporarily suspending electricity exports.
While the situation stayed at this point throughout February while the tariffs were themselves implemented, Ecuador raised the tariffs in March to 50% on Colombian exports, increasing yet further to 100% by the beginning of April, and coming into effect on May 1st.
The escalation, at this stage, took on an intensely personal turn: the increase to 100% came after Petro publicly called Ecuadorian Vice President Jorge Glas a “political prisoner,” after he was imprisoned following a controversial raid on Mexico’s embassy to Ecuador in the capital of Quito. Simultaneously, Colombia formalized differentiated tariffs across 190 Ecuadorian products, in steps of 35%, 50%, and 75%.
Finally, in an attempt to cool everything down, the Andean Community ordered both countries to end all reciprocal tariffs within ten business days on May 8, 2026. The order followed the CAN ruling that the measures imposed by each had violated the Cartagena Agreement of 1969, as well as the principle of intra-community free trade.
But the disagreement between the two countries is not economic only; politics, as ever, has played a major role in this escalation. Noboa, whose party the National Democratic Action (ADN) is right-leaning and generally more conservative, has sought increasingly closer relations with US President Donald Trump whilst alienating the socialist Petro (who was elected in 2022 as Colombia’s first left-wing president) over the region’s drug trafficking problem.
CAN, formed in 1969 following the Cartagena Agreement and composed of Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru—since then expanding to include Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, and Uruguay as associate members and Chile leaving in 1976—is explicitly set up to deal with trade in goods and services, the regulation of a customs union between members, a common market, and even foreign policy.
Originally called the Andean Pact, CAN was driven by a desire for regional economic self-sufficiency and protection from larger global powers, at a time when the Latin American nations really were members of the “Third World,” caught between the Free World and the Soviet Bloc and its allies.
As a result, it not only has the authority and power to rule on trade conflicts between members, but also has precedence over national law and applies directly without requiring further ratification. Evidently, it cannot address the political conditions that lead to such crises as that between Ecuador and Colombia, but it can at the very least force the two nations to cease escalations.
At a time when the barriers to trade are going up, and the most recognizable trade bloc in the world—the European Union—is overregulating the economies it was established to safeguard and facilitate trade between, the ruling by CAN is a welcome reminder that free trade is one of the most effective guarantees of international peace in history. The EU is a particularly egregious example of this squashing of trade: in the space of five years between 2019 and 2024, around 13,000 acts were created in the EU (compared to roughly 3,500 laws from Washington, DC). Likewise, Meta dedicated something in the region of 600,000 engineering hours and over 11,000 employees to compliance with the EU’s Digital Markets Act.
CAN may not be able to resolve the political conditions that led to this trade war escalation; it will evidently struggle to combat regional drug trades, it does not by itself inculcate respect for the rule of law, and it certainly cannot prevent the Colombian President making comments on the legality of Ecuador’s own internal politics. Nevertheless, CAN is at least able to remove the friction between nations and their economies through institutionalization of free speech, and fostering a culture of international trade.
