Image via Fresh Plaza.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio is in Ecuador today to meet with President Daniel Noboa, and trade is one of the priority agenda items for the visit. Part of Rubio’s third trip to Latin America since assuming the role, his stop in Ecuador highlights the country’s growing strategic importance for U.S. interests. As geopolitical competition hardens supply chains and rewires hemispheric commerce, Ecuador is quietly repositioning itself—not as an oil story, but as a diversified Pacific trader linking North America, Europe and Asia.
From hydrocarbons to containers
Ecuador’s trade history has long been shaped by oil exports, which for decades dominated the country’s foreign exchange earnings and defined its commercial profile abroad. But Ecuador’s foreign trade profile is no longer defined by crude. In the first five months of 2025, non-oil exports reached $12.0 billion (up 23.7% year over year) and produced a non-oil trade surplus of $2.65 billion, reflecting both stronger shipments and disciplined import growth in capital goods and intermediates. Top destinations were the United States, the European Union and China, and top products included shrimp, bananas, cocoa and chocolate, canned fish and copper and lead concentrates—a mix that spans the agri-food, aquaculture and critical minerals industries.
Three pillars of market access
Ecuador’s trade performance sits on three regulatory pillars:
- European Union: Since 2013, Ecuador has participated in the EU’s trade agreement with Colombia and Peru, granting broad tariff preferences and stable rules of origin—critical for agri-food and manufactured exports.
- United States: While there is no comprehensive free trade agreement (FTA) between the U.S. and Ecuador, the 2020 Trade and Investment Council (TIC) Protocol locked in disciplines on customs facilitation, good regulatory practices, anticorruption and small- and medium-sized enterprise (SME) support—quiet but powerful technical reforms that reduce frictions at the border and in supply chains.
- China: The China–Ecuador FTA, signed in 2023 and in effect since May 2024, anchors Ecuador to the Asian demand cycle and to Pacific container flows—especially for shrimp, bananas, timber derivatives and metals.
What’s actually moving: shrimp, cocoa, canned fish and concentrates
Shrimp remains the export engine and an increasingly diversified one. In the first quarter of 2025, Ecuador shipped approximately 719,000 metric tons of shrimp (up 16.7% year over year), with the EU the fastest-growing market (+37.7% YoY), continued strength in China (+7.7%) and solid gains to the U.S. (+13.1%). Beyond aquaculture, non-oil exports show impressive breadth: Cocoa and cocoa products have surged in both value and processing depth; canned fish consolidates Ecuador’s role in Pacific protein supply chains tied to U.S. and EU markets; and copper and lead concentrates point to Ecuador’s entry into energy-transition minerals.
Geopolitics at the port gate
Washington and Beijing both view Andean trade corridors as strategic. U.S. trade diplomacy emphasizes ‘trusted’ supply chains in the Americas, while also competing with China’s deepening commercial footprint in Latin America. For Ecuador, that rivalry plays out in tariff schedules, standards and financing—areas where maintaining regulatory credibility and port efficiency can convert geopolitics into market share.
On the U.S. side, the TIC Protocol matters more than its low profile suggests: Customs digitalization, transparency rules and SME chapters lower fixed costs for new exporters and make it easier to comply with Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) processes—especially relevant for perishables and value-added agri-food. On the China side, the implementation of the FTA reduces tariffs and formalizes dispute-avoidance mechanisms, channeling Asian demand toward Ecuador’s Pacific ports.
The trade policy to-do list
Even with strong 2025 numbers, three policy fronts will determine whether Ecuador can lock in their beyond-oil trajectory:
- Rules-of-origin and standards readiness. Expanding processed cocoa, canned fish and manufactured goods requires rigorous compliance with EU and U.S. sanitary, sustainability and labor chapters, as well as China’s product standards.
- Trade facilitation & logistics. The growth of shrimp as an Ecuadorian export underscores the payoff from faster clearance times and reliable cold-chain logistics; scaling this across other goods requires port automation and paperless border procedures.
- Market diversification within agreements. Leveraging multiple FTAs can enable Ecuador to increase cross-selling and reduce exposure to any single market shock.
Why it matters now
As the region nears the Summit of the Americas and as Caribbean-Pacific trade lanes gain a higher profile, Ecuador’s story resembles the Dominican Republic’s in one notable respect: Nimble middle-income economies can reshape their geopolitical relevance through trade execution rather than slogans. The combination of surging non-oil exports, trilateral market access (EU-U.S.-China) and a pragmatic facilitation agenda gives Ecuador a credible path to stable foreign trade earnings, employment and private investment—provided policy continuity sustains the gains.
Chiara Perotti Correa is a Global Americans fellow and international trade consultant. She is a former advisor to the Ministry of Production, Foreign Trade, Investments and Fisheries of Ecuador.
