Faced with several days of overt threats from the Obama Administration and top a key US-Ecuador trade pact if they dare to grant asylum to Edward Snowden, the Ecuadoran government has told the US what they can do with their frozen broccoli and fresh cut flowers, and has .
President Rafael Correa said that his nation would not tolerate US blackmail and that the trade pact wasn鈥檛 worth the harm it would do to Ecuadoran sovereignty. With most of its neighbors getting free trade with the US, the loss of the pact may put Ecuador at an economic disadvantage.
But only really on . Though those are big exports to the US, they are dwarfed by Ecuador鈥檚 largest export, oil. And if Ecuador鈥檚 oil is no longer welcome in the US, that鈥檚 one commodity they can easily sell elsewhere.
And just in case there were any doubts of what Ecuador was telling the Obama Administration, the nation鈥檚 Communications Secretary, Fernando Alvarado, announced $23 million in Ecuadoran aid to the United States to provide 鈥渉uman rights training鈥 to combat torture, illegal executions and 鈥渁ttacks on peoples鈥 privacy.鈥
[Reprinted from .]