By Ben Norton – Nov 18, 2025
Ecuador’s Trump-backed right-wing oligarch President Daniel Noboa tried to rewrite the constitution to allow US military bases in the country’s territory. 61% of Ecuadorians voted against it.
The Donald Trump administration is trying to expand the presence of the US military across Latin America, in an attempt to forcibly impose Washington’s hegemony in the region.
The people of Ecuador just delivered a major blow to Trump’s aggressive Latin America strategy.
More than three-fifths of Ecuadorians voted to reject a change to their progressive constitution, which would have allowed the Pentagon to establish US military bases in their territory.
Ecuador’s Trump-backed right-wing oligarch President Daniel Noboa
Ecuador is currently governed by a right-wing president, Daniel Noboa, who is a key regional ally of Trump.
Noboa is the son of Ecuador’s richest billionaire oligarch, Álvaro Noboa — who ran as a presidential candidate in five different elections on a hard-line right-wing platform, but lost every time (in 1998, 2002, 2006, 2009, and 2013).
Daniel Noboa’s grandfather, Luis Noboa, was also the richest man in Ecuador in the 20th century. The family patriarch worked for the Standard Fruit Company, now known as Dole, and established a massive exporting dynasty, specializing in the export of bananas.
The Noboa family is notorious for its corruption and close links to drug trafficking and organized crime.
Daniel Noboa is the third member of the Noboa dynasty to serve as president of Ecuador.
Noboa is also a dual citizen of the United States — and his Ecuadorian critics say that is where his true loyalty lies.
Noboa was born in Miami, Florida, and he was educated in the US. In fact, just two months after he was inaugurated as president of Ecuador, Noboa returned to Miami so his wife, an Instagram influencer, could give birth to their child on US soil, guaranteeing him US citizenship.
As president, Noboa has been widely accused of dictatorial tendencies. He has publicly made fun of left-wing political prisoners, and threatened to imprison more political rivals.
Ecuadorians reject Daniel Noboa’s attempt to change the constitution
One of Noboa’s key goals has been to change Ecuador’s constitution, which is one of the most progressive in the world.
Ecuador’s constitution bans foreign countries from creating military bases in its territory.
Noboa held a referendum on 16 November to try to change the constitution to permit the US to open military bases in Ecuador.
The measure was rejected in a landslide, with 61% of Ecuadorians voting against it, according to the official results from the National Electoral Council (CNE).
In the referendum, Noboa proposed four measures. Voters rejected all of them.
The second measure sought to end public funding of political parties in Ecuador’s elections, which would have given wealthy right-wing forces like the oligarchic Noboa dynasty even more power. That measure was rejected with 58% of the votes against it.
Another measure proposed a constituent assembly to rewrite the entire constitution. That was rejected with 62% of the votes in opposition.
The war on Ecuador’s leftist former President Rafael Correa
Ecuador’s current, progressive constitution was drafted during the government of socialist former President Rafael Correa, who served from 2007 to 2017.
When Correa campaigned for president in the 2006 election, a key part of his left-wing platform was a call for a constituent assembly to write a new constitution.
A new, progressive constitution was approved in a 2008 referendum, with 64% of the votes in support, and just 28% against it.
In 2009, Correa kicked US troops out of Ecuador, and closed US military bases in his country’s territory.
Washington supported a failed right-wing coup attempt against Correa in 2010.
One of Correa’s right-wing opponents in the 2006, 2009, and 2013 elections — all of which he won by a large margin — was Álvaro Noboa, Ecuador’s richest billionaire oligarch, and the father of current President Daniel Noboa.
Correa, who has a PhD in economics, opposed neoliberalism and rejected Ecuador’s history of taking on debt from the US-dominated International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank.
Correa significantly reduced poverty, inequality, and violence. He declared a “Citizens’ Revolution”, based on what he called “21st-century socialism”.
During Correa’s three terms, Ecuador formed closed ties with China. It also promoted Latin American integration, hosting the headquarters of UNASUR, the Union of South American Nations.
Under Correa, Ecuador joined the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA), which promoted de-dollarization. The ALBA even created a new currency for regional trade, to challenge the dominance of the US dollar, called the Sucre.
Today, Correa is living in exile as a victim of political persecution, because right-wing, US-backed authorities in Ecuador formally charged him with the “crime” of so-called “psychic influence” over his left-wing followers.
The Trump administration revives the colonial Monroe Doctrine — and supports drug-trafficking oligarchs
While all US presidents have intervened in Latin America and violated the sovereignty of countries in the region, Donald Trump has made this a key priority of his aggressive foreign policy.
The Trump administration has proudly sought to revive the 202-year Monroe Doctrine, which treats Latin America as the colonial “backyard” of the US empire.
Trump has waged war on Venezuela, seeking to overthrow its President Nicolás Maduro. The Trump administration also imposed sanctions on Colombia’s left-wing President Gustavo Petro, and hit Nicaragua’s revolutionary Sandinista government with more unilateral sanctions.
Washington has pressured Latin American governments to allow the US military to open bases in their territory.
Argentina’s right-wing, self-declared “libertarian” President Javier Milei — one of Trump’s closest allies in the region — has pushed through executive orders that declare a constitutional exception to give the US military access to Argentine territory.
To justify its neocolonial attacks on Latin America and its meddling in the region’s internal affairs, the Trump administration has claimed that it is supposedly fighting drug trafficking.
However, the US government is allied with some of the worst drug traffickers in the region.
One of the most loyal US allies in Latin America is Colombia’s right-wing former President Álvaro Uribe. US intelligence has admitted that he is among the most “important Colombian narco-traffickers”, but he has never faced any consequences, because Washington has always supported him.
In fact, Trump’s Secretary of State and National Security Advisor Marco Rubio has publicly defended Uribe, amid widespread accusations of corruption.
Ecuador is an even clearer example of the US government’s extreme double standards on drug trafficking.
The Noboa dynasty owns private ports in Ecuador, and police documents show that Noboa family companies have used these to smuggle cocaine in banana crates.
Ben Norton
Benjamin Norton is the founder and editor of the independent news website Multipolarista, where he does original reporting in both English and Spanish. Benjamin has reported from numerous countries, including Venezuela, Nicaragua, Bolivia, Ecuador, Honduras, Colombia, and more. His journalistic work has been published in dozens of media outlets, and he has done interviews on Sky News, Al Jazeera, Democracy Now, El Financiero Bloomberg, Al Mayadeen teleSUR, RT, TRT World, CGTN, Press TV, HispanTV, Sin Censura, and various TV channels in Mexico, Nicaragua, Venezuela, Ecuador, and Bolivia. Benjamin writes a regular column for Al Mayadeen (in English and Spanish). He was formerly a reporter with the investigative journalism website The Grayzone, and previously produced the political podcast and video show Moderate Rebels. His personal website is BenNorton.com, and he tweets at @BenjaminNorton.
