It was a sweltering January afternoon in the Amazonian town of Puyo when Andrés Tapia realized his daughter’s public school fees were due. Like many Ecuadorians, he reached for his phone to make a mobile transfer. Carrying cash is too risky these days. Ecuador is in the grip of an ongoing security crisis, with transnational criminal organizations spilling in from neighboring Colombia and…
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At least 17 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean are on board with Trump’s new military alliance. They are calling it the America’s Counter Cartel Coalition. Latin America’s top right-wing leaders are involved, including El Salvador’s Nayib Bukele and Argentina’s Javier Milei. They met in Florida for the event, on March 7.
The United States has promised to use lethal force to destroy cartels and narco-traffickers in those nations. Kristi Noem, the former head of Homeland Security, is the new special envoy for the coalition.
This is a new phase of Trump’s plan for Latin America. Trump’s Donroe Doctrine—Monroe 2.0. The first was the offensive against his enemies in the region. Now Trump is shoring up his allies, and building a coalition where the US military can continue to take action, now in collaboration with countries allied with Trump. We’ve already begun to see this unfold in Ecuador.
This is Episode 8 of Under the Shadow, Season 2.
Under the Shadow is an investigative narrative podcast series that walks back in time, telling the story of the past by visiting momentous places in the present. Season 2 responds in real time to the Trump administration’s onslaught on Latin America.
Hosted by Latin America-based journalist Michael Fox.
Many thanks to Belly of the Beast for the interview with Liz Oliva Fernandez and the use of the sound from several of their videos.
This podcast is produced in partnership between The Real News Network and NACLA.
Theme music by Michael Fox’s band, Monte Perdido. Monte Perdido’s 2024 album Ofrenda is available on Spotify, Deezer, Apple Music, YouTube or wherever you listen to music.
Other music from Blue Dot Sessions.
Script editing by Heather Gies. Hosted,
For nearly three years the Dominican Republic had been excitedly preparing to host the region’s biggest multilateral event: the 2025 Summit of the Americas, bringing together the leaders of nearly every government in the Western Hemisphere. But on November 3rd, only a month before the summit was to take place, the DR’s foreign ministry abruptly announced the postponement of the event citing…
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Ecuador’s Foreign Ministry filed a formal note of protest on Tuesday after a US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent tried to enter the South American nation’s consulate in Minneapolis before being stopped by a staffer inside the building. In a statement released following the incident, the Ecuadorian Foreign Ministry said an ICE agent “attempted to enter the consulate premises,”…
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This article originally appeared on Inside Climate News, a nonprofit, non-partisan news organization that covers climate, energy and the environment. Sign up for their newsletter here. Over a quarter century in the Ecuadorian Amazon, oil giant Texaco (now Chevron) perpetrated an ecological disaster: It dumped 3.2 million gallons of toxic waste, spilled 17 million gallons of crude oil and flared…
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This story originally appeared in Common Dreams on Dec. 09, 2025. It is shared here under a Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0) license.
A US advocacy group, American human rights lawyer Steven Donziger, and the group in Ecuador behind a historic legal battle against Chevron over its dumping of toxic waste in the Amazon rainforest are condemning the Ecuadorian government’s plans to pay the oil giant hundreds of millions of dollars due to an arbitration ruling.
In response to the legal fight in Ecuador that led to a $9.5 billion judgment against Chevron—which bought Texaco—the fossil fuel company turned to the investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) system, suing the South American country in the Hague-based Permanent Court of Arbitration. As part of the latter case, Ecuadorian Attorney General Diana Salazar Méndez’s office announced Monday that the government would pay the US company only around $220 million, rather than the over $3 billion Chevron sought.
While Chevron said in a statement that it was “pleased with the resolution of this matter” and claimed the decision “strengthened the rule of law globally,” and Salazar Méndez’s office celebrated the dramatically lower figure, and the Union of Peoples Affected by Chevron-Texaco (UDAPT)—the group that began the case against oil company in 1993—pushed back against the government’s framing of the reduction “as if it was a success and an economic achievement.”
“The reality is it is a defeat for justice,” UDAPT argued in a Tuesday statement. “For 32 years, UDAPT has documented pollution, environmental crime, and lives broken by Chevron, proving what should be obvious: Communities have not recovered, health has not been restored, clean water has not returned, and the territories that sustain life remain contaminated. A debt is not owed to Chevron. A debt is owed to the Amazonian families still waiting for