The latest victim of the war in Ukraine is… la banana from Ecuador. The raw material of which the South American country is the first exporter in the world it ended up in the center of a few days ago international intrigue on the US-Russia axis, passing through Kiev and Quito. It all started last Tuesday, when the Russian Agricultural Market Regulatory Agency, the Rosselkhoznadzor, he inserted in the blacklist five manufacturers of Ecuadorian bananas, with the official justification that some batches of fruit were found to be infected by the whitefly (Aleurodicus dispersus), a widespread insect globally that mainly attacks and damages banana, mango and avocado plantations.
The agreement between the USA and President Noboa
However, this is in all likelihood a pretext: the real reason would lie in theagreement, signed on January 31 and not at all appreciated by Moscow, between new Ecuadorian president Daniel Noboa and the US government, which provides the Washington's military support in the fight against drug trafficking, in exchange for sending from Ecuador to Ukraine old Soviet weapons that Quito had purchased decades ago and which could now be useful in repelling the Russian invasion.
To be precise, the United States will send weapons for a value of 200 million dollars, to help the Latin American country face thecrime emergency, especially after Congress rejected President Noboa's proposal to increase VAT from 12% to 15% to finance the fight against drug trafficking.
Ecuador: American aid irritates Russians
Noboa, after the wave of violence in recent months, had declared a state of "armed conflict" in the country, drawing up a list of 21 gangs and over 20 thousand wanted people, some of whom were minors. The youngest president in the history of Ecuador hoped to collect the equivalent of approximately 1,3 billion dollars from this tax increase, but as he did not have a majority in Parliament, his initiative was currently rejected. The However, the partnership with the USA has irritated the Kremlin, who therefore decided to interrupt trade with Ecuador, starting with banana imports. A mockery for Noboa, who among other things is the son of Alvaro Noboa, an influential entrepreneur considered the "king of bananas" in his country as the owner of a large company that exports fruit and which also ended up in the Panama Papers investigation for having moved its headquarters to tax havens.
Ecuador: bananas represent 10% of all exports
However, the real damage is suffered by the Ecuadorian economy. For Ecuador the bananas represent 10% of all exports, for a value that in 2023 did not go far from a billion dollars, being lower only than that of oil and shellfish exports.
A quarter of the bananas harvested in the South American country usually end up in Russia. And nine out of ten bananas consumed in Vladimir Putin's country come from Ecuador, which had also shown itself faithful to its partner by not adhering to Western sanctions against Russia. Which is already being organized differently: the Rosselkhoznadzor Agency has made it known that the bananas from Ecuador will be replaced by those from India, the Kremlin's new ally, on the eastern axis, to counter Euro-Atlantic domination.
