The election of a market-friendly banker to Ecuador’s presidency will provide a new ally for the US in Latin America, a region flooded with populist leaders whose priorities often do not coincide with those of Washington.
But Guillermo Lasso, who beat his left-wing rival on Sunday, will also have to voice Biden’s biggest rival, China. Mr. Lasso, 65, faces the challenge of digging his country out of its worst economic crisis in a generation, the result of a Covid-19 pandemic that killed more than 17,000 people.
“Lasso, if nothing else, is very pragmatic, and today in Ecuador there is a need for close relations with the United States and also China,” said Michael Shifter, president of the Inter-American Dialogue, a policy group in Washington. “The country is in dire straits, and not taking sides or excluding one of the countries is unrealistic.”
Ecuador is now so saddled with debt to Beijing that the state coffers are almost empty, forcing the country to restructure debt to private creditors and take a $ 6.5 billion bailout from the International Monetary Fund.
Under President Rafael Correa, who served until 2017 and led his country away from the U.S. and to China, Beijing’s largest has built everything, from dams to mines and hospitals. According to the Inter-American Dialogue, the debt burden is very large – $ 18.4 billion, the third highest in Latin America and behind two much larger countries, Brazil and Venezuela.