Ecuador Rejects Return of US Military Bases, Dealing Blow to Noboa’s Security Agenda

Ecuadorians have delivered a blunt answer to President Daniel Noboa’s security gamble: no foreign military bases, not now, not again.

With almost 90 percent of ballots counted, nearly two-thirds of voters rejected the proposal to allow foreign militaries back into the country, a result that immediately shuts the door on any US return to the Manta airbase, once a major node in Washington’s anti-drug operations.

Noboa, who has tied his presidency to the idea that international cooperation (and, frankly, American muscle) is essential to fighting organised crime, could only concede on X.

“We respect the will of the Ecuadorian people,” he wrote. “Our commitment does not change; it strengthens.”

But the defeat is significant. Ecuador banned foreign bases in 2008. Asking voters to reverse that, in the middle of historic violence, amid alliances with Washington and an increasingly muscular US regional posture, was always going to test the country’s appetite for trade-offs between sovereignty and security.

They chose sovereignty.

The same went for Noboa’s attempt to shrink the size of the National Assembly and slash public funding for political parties. Both proposals went down by wide margins.

The stakes were high. Ecuador is living through unprecedented violence: cocaine routes shifting from Colombia and Peru, gangs assassinating mayors and presidential candidates, ports turned into battlegrounds. Noboa has militarised the streets, raided gang strongholds, and declared near-constant emergencies. But voters still balked at the idea of foreign boots on their soil.

And they remember Manta. Washington won’t love the result. For months, the Trump administration portrayed Noboa as a key partner in curbing migration and drug trafficking. US Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem even toured bases in Manta and Salinas as if the reboot was a done deal.

Now it’s not.

That mistrust is only heightened by Trump’s aggressive operations in the region, 21 strikes on alleged drug boats since September, dozens killed, and mounting criticism from human rights experts calling them extrajudicial executions.

At home, Noboa tried to soften the blow by trumpeting one victory: the capture of “Pipo,” the most-wanted leader of Los Lobos, who had “faked his death, changed his identity and hid in Europe.” Spanish and Ecuadorian police arrested him in Spain hours after the referendum opened.