US President Donald Trump will host Ecuadorean President Daniel Noboa in Florida on Saturday, a White House official confirmed. The encounter occurs just weeks ahead of Ecuador’s decisive April 13 runoff election, which Noboa is contesting against leftist candidate Luisa Gonzalez.
Noboa, 37, was sworn in in 2023 following a snap election and promised to combat Ecuador’s mounting gang violence. His government has sent the military to fight organized crime, tightened up sentencing legislation, and asserted a 15% drop in violent deaths during the previous year.
Although the terms of the Trump-Noboa encounter are not disclosed, Ecuador has indicated interest in having a US military base and in signing a bilateral free trade agreement, as Colombia and Peru have. Noboa also declared a “strategic alliance” with Blackwater founder Erik Prince to battle crime and narcoterrorism in the nation.
Trump, who has made it a policy priority to combat fentanyl trafficking, has imposed tariffs on Mexico, Canada, and China to stem the flow of the synthetic opioid into the US Ecuador’s involvement is not clear in this initiative.
The session also comes during debate in Ecuador’s parliament to repeal a 2008 constitutional prohibition on foreign military bases. The US once had bases in Ecuador, such as one on the Galápagos Islands in World War II and another for anti-narcotics operations until 2009.
Noboa has been strong on immigration, saying that Ecuador will not take deported migrants of other nationalities but will continue to accept its own citizens. He has also condemned Venezuela’s temporary refusal to take deported Venezuelan nationals from the US.
With security and trade up for discussion, the result of the Trump-Noboa meeting may set the tone for US-Ecuador relations before Ecuador’s high-stakes election.
