Ecuador Voters Crush Right-Wing Push to Allow Return of US Military Bases

https://www.commondreams.org/news/ecuador-us-military-bases

Ecuador Voters Crush Right-Wing Push to Allow Return of US Military Bases

“It is, to date, the Noboa government’s biggest electoral defeat.”

JAKE JOHNSON
Nov 17, 2025

Ecuador’s voters on Sunday delivered a major blow to right-wing President Daniel Noboa by decisively rejecting the proposed return of foreign military bases to the South American country’s soil—including installations run by the United States.

Around two-thirds of voters opposed the measure with most ballots tallied, a result that was widely seen as a surprise. Voters also rejected a separate effort to rewrite the country’s progressive 2008 constitution, which enshrined strong labor and environmental rights.

The stinging defeat for Noboa, an ally of US President Donald Trump, comes as the United States carries out an aggressive military buildup and deadly airstrike campaign in the Caribbean and the eastern Pacific—and weighs a direct attack on Venezuela. The BBC reported that the Trump administration “had hoped the referendum would pave the way to opening a military base in Ecuador, 16 years after it was made to close a site on its Pacific coast.”

“The former US military base on Ecuador’s Pacific coast was closed after left-wing President Rafael Correa decided not to renew its lease and pushed for the constitutional ban,” the outlet noted.

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