Exporters Ask Ecuador’s Constitutional Court to Prioritize Three Trade Reviews

Ecuador’s exporters are pressing for faster movement on three trade agreements that remain in domestic review. El Universo reported on October 24 that the Ecuadorian Federation of Exporters (Fedexpor) sent a request to the Constitutional Court to prioritize pending rulings tied to agreements with Canada, the United States and the United Arab Emirates.

The instruments were signed at different points in 2026: Ecuador and Canada signed a free-trade agreement in Ottawa on July 24; Ecuador and the United States signed a Reciprocal Trade Agreement in Washington on March 13; and Ecuador and the UAE signed a Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement in Quito on March 1. The report describes their internal procedures as ongoing. A signature alone should not be read as evidence that an agreement has entered into force.

The coverage gap cited by exporters

Fedexpor president Xavier Rosero said 53% of Ecuador’s non-oil exports currently have trade-agreement coverage. He contrasted that with coverage above 85% in Colombia, Peru and Chile. The organization also says the non-oil export sector represents more than 23% of Ecuador’s gross domestic product and supports more than 1.5 million direct and indirect jobs. These are figures attributed to the federation in the report, not independently audited estimates in this article.

The Court’s October 15 decision on the U.S. agreement found that the National Assembly must approve it before ratification, according to El Universo. The Court cited provisions of Article 419 of the Constitution concerning legislative changes and trade integration. It also ordered publication of the agreement text and provided a ten-day period from publication for citizens to support or challenge its constitutionality. The newspaper reported that, as of October 23, the ruling had not entered the Assembly, although officials had been notified by email on October 16.

The article does not report equivalent final rulings for the Canada or UAE agreements, nor does it provide an implementation date or product-level tariff schedules. Those distinctions matter for commercial planning: the three signed documents are at different procedural stages, and the report offers no basis for assuming a particular tariff benefit is already available.

What to watch

The next indicators are Court decisions on the Canada and UAE procedures, publication and legislative handling of the U.S. agreement, and any official implementation timetable or tariff schedule. Until those steps are documented, market-access benefits remain prospective in the reporting, not a measured outcome.

Source: El Universo.