QUITO, Ecuador — Visiting U.S. Vice President Mike Pence praised Ecuador’s leader for warming relations on Thursday and urged him to hold a firm line against neighboring Venezuela, which has been crumbling under a crisis.
Winning back trade privileges rejected by Ecuador’s former president, Rafael Correa, were a central part of the talks for current President Lenin Moreno.
“The Ecuadorean people have shown remarkable compassion,” Pence said, noting that 350,000 Venezuelans have fled to Ecuador, a country of a little more than 16 million people. “We must all take strong action to restore democracy in Venezuela.”
In his Latin American trip, Pence announced $10 million in aid to assist in the absorption of Venezuelan refugees, dedicating $2 million of that to efforts in Ecuador. The U.S. since 2017 has provided its regional partners nearly $31 million.
Pence said that relations have improved under Moreno’s leadership and noted their shared fight against international drug traffickers. He credited the new president with reversing a decade of failed policy and rooting out corruption.
Pence arrived in Quito on Wednesday evening from Manaus, Brazil, where he visited a shelter that houses Venezuelans who have fled their homeland’s economic and political turmoil.
Moreno was elected last year with Correa’s backing but has since broken with his mentor in adopting a more business- and press-friendly stance that has earned him bipartisan praise in Washington as something of a bridge builder in ideologically polarized Latin America.
Under Moreno, Ecuador has distanced itself from Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, for example pulling funding for the Caracas-based Telesur TV network.
But his government nonetheless disappointed Washington by abstaining from a recent vote in the Organization of American States on a resolution that could trigger the country’s suspension from that regional group.
“Both countries express our concern over the economic situation and the humanitarian crisis in Venezuela, which has caused the exodus of more than two million Venezuelans to several countries, including Ecuador,” Moreno said, speaking alongside Pence.
Moreno said a solution to the crisis is ultimately up to Venezuelans, but he and Pence agreed to work together in coordination with the Organization of American States to promote citizen rights and fundamental freedoms throughout Latin America, Moreno said.
The United States has already imposed sanctions on Venezuela, but the Trump administration hopes to persuade more countries in the region to increase pressure on Maduro.
Maduro won a second six-year term in May in an election boycotted by the main opposition parties and widely criticized by the United States and other governments as a sham.
Maduro late Wednesday called Pence a “poisonous viper,” saying the United States and Europe publicly attack Venezuela’s democratic shortfalls, but really seek riches from a country with the world’s largest oil reserves.
The road “is not what Mike Pence tells us,” Maduro said. “We have defeated you and we are going to defeat you, Mike Pence, wherever you are and wherever you travel.”
Speaking privately with Moreno, Pence raised the issue of Julian Assange, the WikiLeaks founder who Ecuador has granted asylum, according to a senior administration official who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Assange, whose leak of classified U.S. documents infuriated U.S. government officials, has been a sticking point between the two nations. He has been living under asylum inside the Ecuadorean Embassy in London since 2012.
The two leaders agreed to keep in closely in touch about the case, the senior administration official said. Pence and Moreno did not mention Assange in public comments.
Ten U.S. senators from the Democratic Party sent Pence a letter Wednesday urging him to press Moreno on Assange.
After his talks in Quito, Pence flew from Ecuador toward Guatemala for a meeting Thursday evening with the leaders of Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala.
