SOUTHCOM, Ecuador and Colombia weigh binational border base against traffickers

At a high-level meeting spanning Tumaco (Colombia's Nariño department) and San Lorenzo (Ecuador's Esmeraldas province) on 27-28 August 2026, Gen. Francis Donovan met Ecuadorian Defense Minister Gian Carlo Loffredo and Colombian military and government officials to weigh an unprecedented binational military base on the two countries' shared border, aimed at pressuring trafficking networks including FARC dissidents and the ELN active across Nariño, Putumayo, Esmeraldas, Carchi and Sucumbíos. No location, command structure, personnel numbers or timeline were announced, and the proposal runs up against Ecuador's constitutional prohibition on foreign military bases — the same provision at issue in the ongoing dispute over the Esmeraldas/Manta special-forces deployment. The three sides agreed to deepen intelligence-sharing and coordinate leadership-targeting operations regardless of the base's fate.