Love this next partDefiant authorities in Ecuador say they won't bow to U.S. pressure as they weigh former NSA contractor Edward Snowden's request for asylum.
Ecuador's president and other top officials said Thursday that they're turning down the trade benefits the United States gives them as part of the Andean Trade Promotion and Drug Eradication Act.
"In the face of threats, insolence and arrogance of certain U.S. sectors, which have pressured to remove the preferential tariffs because of the Snowden case, Ecuador tells the world we unilaterally and irrevocably renounce the preferential tariffs," President Rafael Correa said Thursday, reiterating comments other officials from his government made earlier in the day.
In a fiery speech at an event in Quevedo, Ecuador, the president vowed not to back down. "It is outrageous to try to delegitimize a state for receiving a petition of asylum," Correa said.
Authorities in Ecuador said they're still evaluating Snowden's asylum petition, which has thrust the South American country into the international spotlight as a key player in the global manhunt for the fugitive who has admitted leaking classified documents about U.S. surveillance programs.
Snowden, who faces espionage charges in the United States, is slammed as a traitor by critics and hailed as a hero by his supporters.
Correa offered a swift response on social media when a Washington Post editorial this week criticized what the newspaper called a "double standard" in Ecuador, noting that the country is weighing asylum for Snowden just after it passed new regulations cracking down on press freedoms.
"What a joke! Do they realize the power of the international press? They have centered the attention on Snowden and the 'evil' countries that 'support' him, making everyone forget the terrible things that he denounced in front of the American people and the entire world," Correa said in a series of Twitter posts.
On Thursday, a U.S. State Department spokesman warned that Ecuador's economic ties with the United States could be in jeopardy if the South American country offers asylum to Snowden.
"What would not be a good thing is them granting Mr. Snowden asylum," State Department spokesman Patrick Ventrell told reporters. "That would have grave difficulties for a bilateral relationship." He added that withdrawing from trade agreements isn't exactly an option for Ecuador. "They're unilateral trade provisions that provide a benefit to certain Ecuadorian products," Ventrell said. "Whether they're renewed or not is a prerogative of the U.S. Congress."
Ecuadorian officials offered to give $23 million annually -- roughly the same amount officials said that Ecuador receives in benefits from the tariff deal -- to the United States. The money, Communications Secretary Fernando Alvarado told reporters Thursday morning, could be used for human rights training.
"Our dignity," Correa said, "doesn't have a price."
No fvcking wonder we're in the shape we're in with fvcks like these running around loose. Fvcking t-man is so busy ripping off elderly widows that he doesn't even have time to post one of his five page diatribes of jabbering half-witticisms that make JSO look lioke he has a clue. At least they have ALPACAJIZZ! to shine their shoes and carry their luggage...
But that's entirely beside the point. Again, there's probably some wisdom in setting the bar a little higher than that. The possibility of stealing private correspondence and using that against political enemies or as a tool in the hands of present and future bad actors and unconstitutional practices alone should make it worth protecting.