In light of the imminent signing of the Free Trade Agreement (FTA) between Ecuador and Canada, scheduled for July 24, 2026, the Platform Latin America and the Caribbean Better Without FTAs expresses its profound rejection and concern.
Ecuador-Canada FTA: A Neoliberal Treaty That Subordinates Sovereignty and Peoples’ Rights
DECLARATION OF THE PLATFORM LATIN AMERICA AND THE CARIBBEAN BETTER WITHOUT FTAs
In light of the imminent signing of the Free Trade Agreement (FTA) between Ecuador and Canada, scheduled for July 24, 2026, the Platform Latin America and the Caribbean Better Without FTAs expresses its profound rejection and concern.
The announcement by Daniel Noboa’s government is made without the citizenry knowing the final text, evidencing a negotiation process lacking transparency and social participation. This treaty is part of the continuity of a neoliberal strategy that deepens the subordinated insertion of our region into the global economy. Under promises of market opening, it consolidates a model that benefits large agro-export, mining, and financial corporations, while weakening the economic, legal, productive, and territorial sovereignty of our peoples.
We share the denunciations made by Indigenous, peasant, trade union, and ecological organizations, such as Ecuador Decide No FTA and Acción Ecológica, who warned that negotiations advanced «behind closed doors and with total opacity.» The signing of this treaty is not a mere technical act, but a political decision that compromises natural resources, public services, domestic production, and the State’s regulatory capacity, without binding consultations or impact assessments having been carried out.
Threats to constitutional sovereignty
We are particularly concerned about the inclusion of investor-State international arbitration mechanisms, incompatible with Article 422 of the Ecuadorian Constitution. This mechanism, already rejected by citizens in the April 2024 referendum, would allow corporations to sue the country for public policies that affect their profit expectations, subjecting legal sovereignty to private tribunals. It is unacceptable to reinstate what the people have already rejected through a treaty without social deliberation.
The FTA cannot be disconnected from the interests of Canadian mining corporations. As Acción Ecológica has pointed out, the agreement reinforces the extractivist model and undermines territorial and collective rights. Experience in the region shows that these clauses are used to pressure against environmental policies, community consultations, and water defense.
Labor and social rights at risk
The Ecuadorian Confederation of Free Trade Union Organizations (CEOSL) has warned that the treaty undermines labor and environmental rights. We reject the instrumental use of references to women, Indigenous peoples, or MSMEs to «whitewash» an agreement that favors big capital. The promises of access to the Canadian market do not answer fundamental questions: what will happen to family peasant farming, mining regulation, water protection, and territorial rights?
Deepening dependence
Latin American experience shows that these treaties reinforce raw material exports, business concentration, and technological dependence, without generating the promised industrialization or technology transfer.
Demands and solidarity
- Disclosure of the full text and opening of a broad, democratic, and binding national debate.
- Independent assessments of its impacts on sovereignty, labor rights, peasant agriculture, nature’s rights, and the State’s regulatory capacity.
We express our solidarity with the Ecuadorian organizations that have fought against this agreement and make their demands our own:
For sovereign integration
We reaffirm that Latin America and the Caribbean need cooperation and fair trade, but not treaties that grant privileges to corporations and reduce State sovereignty. We propose an integration based on productive complementarity, food and energy sovereignty, and respect for nature’s rights.
Agreements that grant more rights to corporations than to peoples are not cooperation; they are mechanisms of neocolonial subordination. We do not need more FTAs. We need more sovereignty, regional integration, and social justice.
Platform Latin America and the Caribbean Better Without FTAs
July 2026