I'm John Thatcher, with my good colleague, Professor Evan Ellis, who's my guide on the Americas.

And it's very helpful to go from the countries I know something of without the language

to those that I am learning everything for the first time. That was true in Trinidad, Tobago.

It's also true in Ecuador. Scott Kito, it's been part of the Spanish story in the Americas for

500, 600 years. I don't know the first date. It was the source of great wealth for the Spanish king once upon a time.

Now it's been a troubled country of narco-terrorism and what you'd have to say is inside dealing by the leadership,

except an election turning surprisingly positive, re-electing a man named Naboa, a young man,

who was elected in a filling election last year, I believe, or maybe it was 23.

I get them mixed up.

But now has a full term in Ecuador, Quito, the capital.

The professor is very familiar with Ecuador. He's traveled there often. Checking up, Professor, because my tendency is, once we've solved a problem,

to move on to other problems, I wanted to go back over Quito. Is Naboa well placed as he got good

relations with Secretary Rubio in the United States. And what is

his mission right now that he has a full term? Thank you. Thank you, John. Well, certainly

Neboa coming off of not only his recent significant victory in Ecuador's second round of

elections, which returned him and also gave his party roughly half of the

seats that they need for control of the constituent assembly. But, of course, coming off also of the

very positive meeting between Naboa and President Trump and in Marilago just weeks before the election

signals the way in which Ecuador has

positioned itself is one of the strongest U.S. friends in the region, in addition to Argentina

and in Paraguay and a small number of others. Now, a part of that, really Ecuador has a couple

significant problems, as you alluded to. One of the biggest is drug-related violence. And so

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