The president of Ecuador, Daniel Noboa, on Wednesday accused his neighbor, Colombian far-left President Gustavo Petro, of allegedly “driving” a guerrilla incursion on the nation’s northern border.
Noboa has not publicly presented any evidence to substantiate his accusations at press time.
“Several sources have informed us of an incursion by Colombian guerrillas across the northern border, instigated by the Petro administration,” Noboa wrote on social media. “We will protect our border and our people. President Petro, focus on improving the lives of your people instead of trying to export problems to neighboring countries.”
Throughout 2026, Petro and Noboa have found themselves at the center of an ongoing diplomatic and trade impasse after the Ecuadorian president accused Petro of not collaborating with Ecuador in the fight against drug trafficking and illegal mining across their shared border. In late January, Ecuadorian Defense Minister John Reimberg claimed that Colombia is doing “nothing” to combat drug trafficking amid rising illegal activity along the shared, roughly 372-mile-long border.
At the time, Noboa imposed a series of tariffs on Colombian goods — including a 900-percent tariff on all Colombian oil that transits through Ecuador’s Trans-Ecuadorian Pipeline System (SOTE), raising the price from $3 per barrel of oil to $30. Starting on Friday, May 1, Ecuador will raise tariffs on imported Colombian goods from 50 to 100 percent, a measure that the Colombian government reiterated on Thursday morning that it will respond with tariffs of between 35 to 75 percent on a list of 191 Ecuadorian goods.
Petro responded to Noboa’s accusations through a social media post in which he called on Noboa to “Go to the northern border and meet me there, and we’ll build peace in those territories,” urging him to “stop believing lies.”
The growing impasse between Petro and Noboa further escalated over the past days in the aftermath of a deadly bomb attack against a public transportation bus committed by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) Marxist terrorist group near the Colombian municipality of Cajibío, which left 21 civilians dead and dozens injured. Petro, during a Monday public broadcast, called for an investigation to determine if the explosives used in the terrorist attack “came from Ecuador” with the purpose of “sabotaging” the upcoming May 31 presidential election.
The Colombian president also claimed that Colombia — the world’s top cocaine producer — is not the top exporter of cocaine, but rather the “Ecuadorian ports” are and said, “That’s because they aren’t being monitored as closely as we are increasingly monitoring departures and seizures carried out on the high seas and in ports, and so on, around the world with the help of Colombian intelligence.”
Petro also announced in a lengthy Sunday social media post that he intends to sue Noboa for slander after the Ecuadorian president claimed to the Colombian magazine Semana that Petro allegedly met in Ecuador with members of the socialist Citizen Revolution Party linked to José Adolfo “Fito” Macías Villamar, the leader of Ecuador’s most powerful gang, the Choneros. Macías Villamar was extradited to the United States in July 2025.
The purported encounter, Noboa asserted, allegedly took place in May 2025 when Petro visited Ecuador to participate in Noboa’s inauguration ceremony. According to Noboa, Petro visited the Ecuadorian city of Manta after the inauguration and “stayed at a home for three days, supposedly, to write a book.”
“The owners of those [houses] are directly or indirectly linked to drug trafficking. So, once again, he always tries to shift the blame onto us, but he never offers any real explanations for the things he does himself,” Noboa told Semana this month.
“That’s part of an investigation. He met with members of the Citizen Revolution, and some of those members have ties to Fito,” he continued. “I can’t say at this point whether he actually met with Fito in person. But let’s just say he was with the same group and in the same area.”
“Nothing, I don’t know this Fito guy or his friends. I’ve only been to Ecuador to attend the inaugurations of its presidents, and we’ve captured many criminals born in that country whom we’ve handed over to them,” Petro wrote on a social media post. “Noboa is going through the same thing Trump did: our Colombian far-right, which is made up of murderers and drug traffickers, is filling his head with lies.”
Christian K. Caruzo is a Venezuelan writer and documents life under socialism. You can follow him on Twitter here.
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