Star Metro - Long truck lines at Colombia-Ecuador border as tariffs loom

Ecuador this month said it would impose 30 percent tariffs on dozens of products from Colombia, with Ecuadoran President Daniel Noboa accusing his neighbor of not doing enough to combat drug trafficking along their shared border.

Colombia responded with a matching tariff and said it was suspending energy sales to Ecuador. The reciprocal tariffs are set to take effect February 1.

The maneuvers have concerned those who haul goods across the border, and truckers attempting to enter Ecuador with Colombian goods on Friday formed long lines stretching to the southern Colombia border city of Ipiales.

The truckers feel "uncertainty because we don't know what's going to happen," Alvaro Jaramillo, a Colombian truck driver with 18 years of experience, told AFP.

Jaramillo arrived at the border on the Pan-American Highway about noon and by 7 pm local time (0000 GMT) had still not reached the customs post.

Trade between the two countries is of vital importance to his family and "all the transporters" in the area, he said.

He hopes the situation will be resolved through dialogue and that the two countries can begin working together.

But the dispute is intensifying.

Ecuador this week increased the tariff for transporting Colombian crude oil through its pipeline by 900 percent after Colombia last week suspended energy sales.

The Ecuadoran Foreign Ministry has said that there is "dialogue" between the two nations, but the country's foreign minister, Gabriela Sommerfeld, said on Friday that there is still no agreement on a tariff deal.

Aerial footage captured by AFP on Friday showed hundreds of trucks waiting to cross the Rumichaca International Bridge separating the two countries.

"The traffic increased dramatically" this week, said truck driver Alexander Revelo, estimating it is up about four times more than average.

The two countries share a border of approximately 600 km (370 miles), where Colombian guerrillas and drug traffickers operate.

Ecuador has the highest homicide rate in Latin America, with a high of 52 murders per 100,000 inhabitants.

Colombia is the world's largest producer of cocaine. Most of it passes through Ecuador before being transported by sea, primarily to the United States and Europe.

Noboa has defended the tariffs as compensation for the money invested in border security.

D.Ch. Nadeau--SMC