Noboa and Ecuadorian First Lady Lavinia Valbonesi met with President Trump at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida on Saturday. While Noboa shared a picture of the encounter, he abstained from publicly disclosing details of his conversation with Trump until Tuesday.
The Ecuadorian president spoke with the local radio station Sucesos and described his private meeting with Trump as “positive” and “enjoyable,” claiming that President Trump asked him to “not give too many details” of the private meeting.
According to Noboa, “they [the U.S.] see positively what we are doing in Ecuador” and reportedly stated that Trump “was surprised by our inflation figures” and “found it positive that we are fighting against narcoterrorism.”
Noboa, who is running against establishment socialist candidate Luisa González in the upcoming April 13 presidential runoff election, said during the interview that Ecuador “is also open to international bases” and asserted that the United States is “going to help patrol not only for drug trafficking, but also for illegal fishing, which affects us so much.”
Ecuador’s current constitution, established in 2008 during the administration of socialist former president and fugitive convicted felon Rafael Correa, prohibits the establishment of foreign military bases or foreign facilities for military purposes. It also bans ceding existing national military bases to foreign armed or security forces. In that same year, former President Correa terminated an agreement that allowed the United States to use an Ecuadorian Air Force facility in the southwestern port of Manta for anti-drug flights.
Over the past months Noboa has spearheaded calls to eliminate the constitutional foreign military bases prohibition via a reform, a proposal he reiterated during his latest debate with socialist candidate González, who fiercely opposes the reinstatement of foreign military bases.
In February, a constitutional reform bill in the Ecuadorian National Assembly passed its first debate, but its subsequent debates are yet to be scheduled at press time. If the bill is fully approved by the parliamentary, it will be subject to a national referendum for its final approval and implementation.
Noboa reportedly explained that he spoke with Trump on economic and migratory issues related to the assistance that Ecuador offers to migrants deported from the United States. On the matter of security cooperation and U.S. support of military personnel in Ecuador, Noboa said that bilateral maritime agreements already exist “more than two years ago,” which were ratified by his administration to fight against drug trafficking and illegal fishing.
In 2023, during the administration of conservative former President Guillermo Lasso, the United States and Ecuador signed two military cooperation agreements: one on the fight against illicit transnational maritime activities such as drug trafficking and illegal migrant trafficking, and another on ship visiting, training, exercises, and other cooperative activities. The agreements were ratified by Noboa in early 2024 after Ecuador’s Constitutional Court ruled that Noboa did not require the approval of the National Assembly for their execution.
“It is not something new, it is a discussion that we have been having for months. The Government is also open to international bases, that is why we proposed it [a bill] in the Assembly through the National Democratic Action [Noboa’s party] and also that there is a joint work with the Ecuadorian Army and the National Police,” Noboa said, stressing that any support of foreign military personnel must adhere to local law and the agreements signed between both nations.
“Another important thing is not simply that foreign troops come here and do whatever they want,” Noboa said. “They are all subject to the law and to direct supervision and cooperation with our Armed Forces and with the Police.”
Asked if “he got something specific for Ecuador” out of the encounter, Noboa responded that “not everything is transactional and not every meeting is transactional.”
Noboa also reportedly asserted that President Trump “consulted him” about his decision to terminate a license granted by former U.S. President Joe Biden to California-based Chevron that allowed it to operate in Venezuela in compliance with oil sanctions imposed by Trump on the socialist Maduro regime.
“He asked me what I thought of what he had done with Venezuela and I told him that I thought it was good, because it cannot be that the United States has an anti-dictatorship, anti-terrorism stance and at the same time an American company is buying oil from Venezuela. It was my opinion,” Noboa said.
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