More Americans Fall Behind on Utility Bills as AI Data Centers, Trump Attacks on Renewables Raise Costs

“It’s hard to see utility bills coming down in this decade,” said one industry analyst.


An aerial view of a 33 megawatt data center with closed-loop cooling system, amid warehouses on October 20, 2025 in Vernon, California.
(Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images)

Brad Reed
Nov 17, 2025

COMMON DREAMS

Although the rising cost of groceries has gotten a lot of attention in recent weeks, US consumers are also increasingly under pressure from the rising cost of electricity.

A new report from researchers at The Century Foundation and financial abuse watchdog Protect Borrowers has found that the average overdue balance on utility bills has surged by 32% over the last three years, going from $597 in 2022 to $789 in 2025. What’s more, the report estimates that roughly 1 out of every 20 US households has utility debt that is “so severe it was sent to collections or in arrears.”
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The increase in overdue utility bill debt has come at a time when electricity costs have been growing significantly faster than the overall rate of inflation, the organizations found.

“Comparing twelve-month moving averages from March 2022 to June 2025 (to adjust for seasonality), monthly energy costs... nationwide rose from $196 to $265—a 35% jump, or nearly three times overall inflation during that period,” noted the report.

The organizations said that the reasons for these price increases are complicated, although factors include “poorly regulated monopolies overcharging customers to the tune of $5 billion a year,” as well as the explosion in the construction of energy-devouring artificial intelligence data centers and the Trump administration’s attacks on renewable energy projects that began under former President Joe Biden’s administration.

AI data center construction has become a major controversy in communities across the US, and a CNBC analysis published late last week found that “in at least three states with high concentrations of data centers,” electric bills have grown “much faster than the national average” over the last year.

Virginia, which has the highest concentration of AI data centers in the country, saw electricity prices surge by 13% over the last year, while data center-heavy states such as Illinois and Ohio saw electricity costs go up by 16% and 12%, respectively.

Rob Gramlich, president of power sector consulting firm Grid Strategies, told CNBC that the massive growth in data centers means that “it’s hard to see utility bills coming down in this decade.”

The Century Foundation and Protect Borrowers conclude that their report paints “a grim picture” of “increasing energy prices, rising overdue balances, and squeezed household budgets that together are pushing families deeper and deeper into debt.”

Samsung plans $310 bn investment to power AI expansion


By AFP
November 16, 2025


Samsung Electronics is already one of the world's top memory-chip makers - Copyright AFP/File Jung Yeon-je

South Korean conglomerate Samsung unveiled on Sunday a plan to invest $310 billion over the next five years mostly in technology powering artificial intelligence, aiming to meet growing demand driven by a global boom.

The business group’s flagship Samsung Electronics is already one of the world’s top memory-chip makers, providing crucial components for the AI industry and the infrastructure it relies on.

South Korea is also home to SK hynix, another key player in the global semiconductor market.

The five-year investment package includes plans to build a new semiconductor facility, Pyeongtaek Plant 5, designed “to meet the needs of memory-chip demands”, Samsung said in a statement.

Once in full operation, “the Pyeongtaek plant is expected to play an even greater strategic role in both the global semiconductor supply chain and South Korea’s domestic chip ecosystem,” it said.

The new line is scheduled to begin operations in 2028.

Samsung SDS, the group’s IT and logistics arm, will establish two AI data centres in South Jeolla and Gumi, the company said, without providing further details.

Samsung Group is a network of affiliated companies with complex cross-shareholdings under the Samsung brand, rather than a single legal holding company.

It is South Korea’s largest chaebol, the family-run conglomerates that dominate the country’s economy.

The $310-billion plan also includes some projects unrelated to AI.

Under the investment package, the company said that Samsung SDI, its electric-vehicle battery affiliate, was exploring the creation of a domestic production line “for next-generation batteries, including all-solid-state batteries”.

The AI boom has delivered a major tailwind for Samsung Electronics and SK hynix, whose high-performance memory chips have become indispensable for AI computing.

Samsung Electronics has reported that its profit increased more than 30 percent year-on-year in the third quarter, driven by AI-fuelled demand.

AI-related spending is soaring worldwide and sky-high tech share valuations have fed concerns of an AI market bubble that could eventually burst, like the dot-com boom that imploded at the turn of the millennium.

The investment package announced on Sunday comes after the South Korean government had pledged to triple spending on artificial intelligence next year.

President Lee Jae Myung has vowed to “usher in the AI era” and make the country one of the world’s top three AI powers, behind the United States and China.

Electric vehicles are accelerating ahead of diesel vehicles


By Dr. Tim Sandle
SCIENCE EDITOR

DIGITAL JOURNAL
November 16, 2025


Chinese firm CATL produces electric vehicle batteries for major brands including Volkswagen, Tesla, Mercedes-Benz and BMW - Copyright AFP/File FABIAN BIMMER

As of the end of October 2025, there are over 1,700,000 fully electric cars in the UK. This means that around 5.09% of the circa 34 million cars on UK roads are fully electric.

EVs, in the UK, account for more car sales than diesels. So far during 2025, 386,244 new fully electric cars have been sold, which is 22.4% market share of all new cars registered this year

This is in stark contrast to August 2024, when EVs made up just 10% of all sales and diesels accounted for 19%. These data come from the car firm cinch. The new data shows that 16% of cinch’s total sales in August 2025 were electric cars, while diesels accounted for 13%.

Abhishek Sampat, head of electric vehicles at cinch, explains: “EVs used to be a relatively niche choice in the used car market, but not anymore. One in every six cars we sell is now an EV, and the uptake is growing each month. We sold 66 different EV models in August – up from 47 during the same period in 2024. The variety of vehicles now available – from family-friendly SUVs to small, affordable hatchbacks – is being driven by consumer demand.”

 Top-selling EVs so far in 2025

The Tesla Model 3 takes top spot, followed by one of the most recognisable EVs on Britain’s streets: Nissan’s LEAF.

1. Tesla Model 3
2. Nissan LEAF
3. MINI Hatchback
4. Vauxhall Corsa-E
5. Kia e-Niro
6. Volkswagen ID.3
7. Hyundai Kona
8. Renault ZOE
9. Vauxhall Mokka-e
10. Jaguar I-Pace

Fast-movers

In August 2025, EVs sold at a rate 43% faster than diesels and 29% faster than petrol cars on cinch. 

Top 10 fastest-selling EVs on cinch (Jan-Aug 2025)

1. Škoda Enyaq IV
2. Renault ZOE
3. MG ZS EV
4. Citroën ë-C4
5. Hyundai Kona
6. Kia e-Niro
7. MINI Hatchback
8. Peugeot E-2008
9. Tesla Model Y
10. Tesla Model 3

More choice?

The emergence of new brands such as BYD and OMODA, coupled with more traditional brands pivoting production to electric, means a healthy level of price competition between manufacturers in new cars.

Despite increased levels of inflation during the last 12 months, the average price of an EV on cinch fell by 3% – to just under £16,000. The cheapest EV sold on cinch in August 2025 was a £7,000 Smart Forfour, while the most expensive was a Porsche Taycan at just over £51,000.

Can we tap the ocean’s power to capture carbon?

Marine carbon dioxide removal will have to play a role in helping humanity curb dangerous global warming. But there remain many questions about how verification, reporting and monitoring these technologies will work

Norwegian University of Science and Technology

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image: 

This photo was taken during a study on the effect of ocean alkalinity enhancement as a way to boost carbon uptake in the ocean. The researchers are studying what happens to a North Sea plankton community during spring, Feb-Apr 2023 on Helgoland, Germany under the CDRmare project "RETAKE“.
Here, the researchers used 12 mesocosms, which are enclosed units that allow the researchers to study what happens inside while the entire setup is in its natural setting. Each holds a volume of ~7000L, ~4m depth. The picture shows Dr. Carsten Spisla during sampling at the mesocosms. Photo: Michael Sswat, GEOMAR

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Credit: Photo: Michael Sswat, GEOMAR

The oceans have to play a role in helping humanity remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere to curb dangerous climate warming. But are we ready to scale up the technologies that will do the job?

The answer, according to an expert group reporting to the European Union, is no.

At least, not yet – not until there are measures in place to ensure these technologies, called marine carbon dioxide removal technologies, are doing what they are supposed to do and won’t do more harm than good.

Marine carbon dioxide removal technologies build on the ocean’s ability to absorb carbon. They can be biological, like encouraging the growth of plankton or seaweed that take up carbon dioxide as they grow, or they can be chemical or physical, such as directly removing carbon dioxide from the ocean.

After these technologies remove the carbon from the upper parts of the ocean, it can be stored at the ocean floor and sediments, or the deep ocean, or in geological reservoirs or long-lived products.

“This is about safeguarding the oceans for a common good. The oceans can be part of the climate solution, but we need to strengthen the way we safeguard them before we scale things up,” said Helene Muri, a senior researcher at NILU, the Norwegian Institute for Air Research and the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU).

Muri was chair of an expert group commissioned by the European Marine Board to study the issue.

Their new report, “Monitoring, Reporting and Verification for Marine Carbon Dioxide Removal,” is released in conjunction with the UN’s climate change meeting, COP30, currently being held in Brazil.

Emissions cuts first priority

The Earth is getting warmer, and much faster than the nations of the world had hoped a decade ago when they pledged in Paris to limit global temperature increases to 1.5°C above “pre-industrial levels”.

In his opening remarks to the COP30 Leaders’ Summit on November 6, UN General Secretary António Guterres confronted his audience with the urgency of the situation.

“Science now tells us that a temporary overshoot beyond the 1.5°C limit – starting at the latest in the early 2030s – is inevitable,” he said. “Let us be clear: the 1.5°C limit is a red line for humanity. It must be kept within reach. And scientists also tell us that this is still possible.”

The European Marine Board report underscores the need to act now with tools that are known to work – namely cutting emissions. “We know how to cut emissions, and we have lots of methods that work,” Muri said. “That has to take top priority.”

Net zero and residual carbon

So why talk about removing carbon dioxide from the ocean at all, if the goal is to cut carbon dioxide emissions to zero?

Here’s where reality comes in. Cutting emissions from burning fossil fuels for energy, while difficult, is doable because we have alternative energy sources, such as solar and wind energy, that can do the job.

However, some products and technologies we rely on are difficult to make carbon free. There’s plenty of research being done to reduce carbon emissions from air travel, for example, but carbon-free flight has proved elusive. And even as people are encouraged to fly less, there are still times when air travel is the only option.

Societies across the globe need to achieve something called net zero by 2050. That’s when all the CO2 emissions are zeroed out by removing the exact same amount of emissions.

Reaching the 1.5°C level requires reaching net negative emissions. That’s where societies cut all emissions that are possible to cut but then find ways to compensate for “residual” emissions, those that simply can’t be eliminated.

“We must have a net removal of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere to get to 1.5°C and that means that you will likely have some residual emissions from some sectors, such as shipping and aviation, and some industries,” Muri said. “And then you will have relatively large scale removal of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere as well, so that the net is at about between 5 to 10 gigatons of CO2 removed per year towards the end of the century, according to scenarios by the IPCC.”

To put those numbers into context: Total global CO2 emissions were 42.4 gigatons of CO2 in 2024, according to CICERO, the Oslo-based Center for International Climate Research.

Land-based technologies to remove this “residual” carbon are already underway – the main method is through afforestation. Another example are the Climeworks direct air capture plants in Iceland, where giant fans suck air through a filter that removes the CO2, which is then mixed with water and injected into bedrock, where it turns to stone.

There have been quite a few field tests of different kinds of marine carbon dioxide removal, but many of the technologies remain in their infancy. Others are gaining more traction. Here is why setting standards now, for monitoring, reporting and verifying what is being done, is important.

The challenge

Some marine based approaches to removing carbon dioxide from the ocean are similar to land-based mitigation options. Planting lots of trees or protecting rainforests because they soak up carbon are two examples of land-based mitigation. In the same way, some marine carbon dioxide removal technologies involve protecting and enhancing coastal areas, such as mangrove swamps.

Other approaches are more interventionist, such as fertilizing the ocean with iron or other nutrients to fuel plankton growth. These huge plankton blooms absorb carbon dioxide. When they die, they carry the carbon into the deep ocean, far from the atmosphere.That’s the theory, at least. 

The problem, Muri says, is knowing how well these different technologies actually work.

For example, how does a company actually prove how much excess carbon dioxide is being removed by the technology in question?

If we send carbon to the deep ocean, do we know how long it will stay there?

And while there are a number of different government and international agencies, along with international treaties and protocols, which ones should take the lead role? And how do they verify what is actually being done?

Ideally, “you monitor what is the background state of carbon (in the ocean) and then you implement your project and make sure that you have removed carbon from the atmosphere. And you try to monitor how much carbon that you have removed and how long it is staying away from the atmosphere.  And then you report that to some independent party and then it verifies that what you're saying is correct,” Muri said.

The twist?

“If you're storing it in the ocean, in some form or another, not in a geological reservoir, it's a lot harder to to govern it and also monitor it. The ocean doesn’t stay put,” she said.

Credits and environmental impacts

Addressing these issues will be critical as technologies mature to the point where they are used by governments or companies to claim credit for removing carbon dioxide.

Some companies have already begun to do so, Muri says.

“None of these methods are mature to use if you cannot verify impacts or where the carbon goes, or how long it stays away from the atmosphere,” Muri said.

“If we want to be serious about figuring out if you can do marine carbon dioxide removal in responsible ways that can make meaningful contributions, then we have to get serious about the monitoring, reporting and verification aspects,” she added.

“The credit part of it also has to work right. You have to have reliable and transparent and scientifically defensible crediting systems.”

Reporting will also have to include any environmental impacts, Muri said.

The way forward

In spite of the many uncertainties surrounding marine carbon dioxide removal, “all future scenarios are showing us that we will need carbon dioxide removal in order to reach our most ambitious temperature goal,” Muri said.That’s the conclusion of the IPCC from any number of the organization’s reports, but particularly in a special report from 2018 on Global Warming of 1.5°C.

“We don't know all the threats of these immature methods yet, but it's a bit hard to just take them off the table because they're uncomfortable to think about,” she said.

Nevertheless, marine carbon dioxide removal will not be a “miracle ocean fix to climate change,” she said.  “Some people are really hoping to find an answer in the ocean, but in our opinion, we're not there yet.”

“And there's a question of whether it can be a scientifically governed climate solution, and we don't have the answer to that yet. But if we want to go in that direction, then we need to clear up all of these standards and establish these properly before we can scale things up,” she said.

Reference: Muri, H., Sulpis, O., Argüello, G., Baker, C. A., Böettcher, M., García-Ibáñez, M. I., Kuliński, K., Landolfi, A., Landschützer, P., McGovern, E., Ninčević Gladan, Ž., Oschlies, A., Yfantis, E. A. (2025) Monitoring, Reporting and Verification for Marine Carbon Dioxide Removal. Muñiz Piniella, A., Rodríguez Perez, A., Kellett, P., Alexander, B., Bayo Ruiz, F., Heymans, J. J. [Eds.] Future Science Brief N°. 13 of the European Marine Board, Ostend, Belgium. ISSN: 2593-5232.ISBN: 9789464206388. DOI: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.17435116

A schematic overview of marine carbon dioxide removal (mCDR) methods included in the newly published Future Science Brief from the European Marine Board. 

Credit

Graphic: Rita Erven, GEOMAR (CC BY 4.0).

---

DOI

10.5281/zenodo.17435116 

Method of Research

Content analysis

Subject of Research

Not applicable

Article Title

Monitoring, Reporting and Verification for Marine Carbon Dioxide Removal

Article Publication Date

17-Nov-2025

The Future of Work Must Belong to Workers

A call for a new labor Bill of Rights in the age of automation.


Amazon workers participate in a May Day rally in Manhattan on May 1, 2022 in New York City.
(Photo by Stephanie Keith/Getty Images)

Matt Watkins
Nov 17, 2025

Common Dreams








Ask the warehouse worker training her replacement robot if progress feels inevitable.

Automation is not destiny. It is design, and design can be changed.

Internal Amazon documents reveal plans to replace more than half a million warehouse workers with robots by 2033. Executives call it innovation. Investors call it efficiency. The workers who made the company what it is call it what it feels like: erasure disguised as progress.

If Amazon can erase 500,000 jobs without consequence, every company will follow. Walmart is rolling out automated checkout. Target is testing robotic fulfillment. UPS and FedEx are developing delivery drones. Each step is described as modernization, but modernization without accountability becomes abandonment.

If we fail to govern this transition, we will inherit an economy that no longer needs its citizens.

The United States cannot afford another era of abandonment. Since 1979, productivity has risen by more than 80%, while hourly pay for most workers has barely moved. Automation threatens to widen that divide until it defines the economy itself.

Technology is not the enemy. The problem is who it serves. Every robot that replaces a worker transfers income from wages to shareholders. Every algorithm that eliminates a job turns public innovation into private accumulation. The challenge before us is not to resist progress but to govern it.

In this political moment, that may sound impossible. Washington is consumed by austerity and spectacle. The Trump administration’s second term has stripped worker protections, defunded training programs, and rewarded corporations that offshore or automate without oversight. But political cycles end, and public memory lasts. As the country heads toward the 2026 midterms and the 2028 presidential election, progressives have a rare opening to propose something larger than repair. We can build a new social contract for the automated age—a Labor Bill of Rights that reclaims the meaning of work and the purpose of progress.

That contract should rest on three pillars: profit sharing, a national transition fund, and public oversight.

The first pillar is profit sharing for automation gains.

When technology increases productivity, a share of those gains should go to the workers who make that productivity possible. France has required large firms to share profits with employees since 1967. Germany ensures worker representation on corporate boards, which prevents modernization from becoming a zero-sum game between labor and capital.

The United States could enact a federal profit-sharing mandate for companies with more than 250 employees or over $1 billion in annual revenue. When automation reduces a company’s payroll by more than 5% in a given year, that company would distribute at least 5% of its net profits as direct employee bonuses or shares. This could be structured through the tax code as a refundable surtax on undistributed automation profits.

If a company eliminates thousands of jobs to cut costs, it would still owe a share of its gains to the people and places that built its success. The rule would keep disposable income in circulation, prevent automation from collapsing demand, and ensure that the people who make automation possible continue to benefit from it.

The second pillar is a national automation transition fund.

Corporations that profit from replacing human labor should help finance the transition for those affected. The fund would be financed by an automation contribution: a 1-2% levy on the annual revenue of large firms that automate more than 5% of their workforce in any 12-month period. The Department of Labor would administer the fund through three channels.

First, wage insurance would guarantee workers at least 70% of their prior income for up to two years while they retrain or find new employment. Second, community investment grants would go directly to counties or cities experiencing major automation-driven job loss, funding small business development, infrastructure, and public employment programs. Third, an innovation dividend would fund training in fields that cannot easily be automated, such as healthcare, renewable energy, and education.

The fund could be modeled on unemployment insurance, with employer contributions adjusted annually based on automation activity. For example, if Amazon eliminated 500,000 jobs averaging $35,000 annually, a 2% contribution on its revenue—roughly $12 billion per year—would cover retraining, income support, and regional stabilization. This policy would turn automation from a corporate windfall into a shared investment in the country’s future.

The third pillar is public oversight of large-scale automation.

Just as environmental laws require companies to study and disclose the effects of pollution, corporations that plan to replace significant numbers of workers should disclose the social impacts of automation before acting. Any company planning to eliminate more than 250 jobs in a single year through automation should file an automation impact assessment with the Department of Labor.

The coming decade will decide whether automation serves democracy or displaces it.

The report would detail expected job losses, affected regions, and projected cost savings. It would also include a transition plan describing how the company will use part of those savings to fund retraining, relocation assistance, or community support. The Department of Labor would then coordinate with local governments and unions to review the plan, identify gaps, and recommend mitigation measures.

Failure to file or implement such a plan would carry penalties scaled to company size and profits. Repeat offenders could lose access to federal contracts, tax credits, or receive fines proportional to earnings. Transparency alone changes incentives. Once corporations must account for the social cost of their decisions, they begin to consider the communities they affect.

Together, these pillars would reattach innovation to justice. Profit sharing would reconnect wages and productivity. The transition fund would convert private efficiency gains into public stability. Oversight would replace secrecy with accountability.

None of this is radical. It is the next step in the unfinished project of democracy. When Franklin Roosevelt proposed an Economic Bill of Rights in 1944, he named the right to a useful job, to fair wages, to security, and to education as the foundations of freedom. We never completed that work. The next generation of progressives can.

That opportunity will not come from Congress as it stands. It will come from a national movement that links labor, climate, and democracy into one fight for a livable economy. The 2026 midterms will likely mark the beginning of that realignment, as voters look for something larger than a defense against decline. The 2028 election could be the first since the New Deal where a coalition wins not by promising safety, but by promising transformation.

Technology does not determine our future. Politics does. A robot can replace a worker, but it cannot replace the dignity of work or the shared purpose of a nation. If we fail to govern this transition, we will inherit an economy that no longer needs its citizens. If we succeed, we can create one where technology frees people from insecurity, not from income.

The wealth created by automation rests on a foundation built by the public. The internet that powers online retail began as a government project. The logistics networks that deliver goods rely on public roads and ports. The data that trains artificial intelligence is drawn from our collective lives. The returns should flow back into the society that made them possible.

The coming decade will decide whether automation serves democracy or displaces it. Progressives have a rare chance to lead with vision instead of reaction. The task is not to slow innovation but to make it answer to the people. The future of work must belong to workers—and that future begins when we decide that technology will serve humanity, not replace it.



Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.


Matt Watkins
Matt Watkins is CEO of WPA, where he has helped organizations secure over $1.6 billion in public and philanthropic funding to strengthen communities and expand opportunity. He is also the founding executive director of the Public Resource Defense Project, which helps communities protect vital public funding and services. His writing has appeared in Common Dreams, Slate, and Governing, among others, and he writes a recurring column for the Chronicle of Philanthropy. Watkins is a fellow of the University of Chicago and Crain’s Chicago Business Leadership Circle.
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DOJ Shuttered Antitrust Probe of Meatpackers Before Trump’s ‘Performative’ Investigation Demand

“The law is clear,” said one advocacy group, “what’s been missing is the political will to use it.”


A worker helps a shopper in the meat aisle in a grocery store on July 22, 2025 in Miami, Florida.
(Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

Jake Johnson
Nov 17, 2025
COMMON DREAMS

The US Department of Justice shuttered an antitrust probe into the heavily consolidated meatpacking industry shortly before President Donald Trump announced that he had asked the department to investigate whether companies are unlawfully colluding to push up beef prices.

Bloomberg reported late last week that Trump administration officials “formally notified companies recently that they were closing a probe into sharp price increases” during the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020. The probe began during Trump’s first term and continued through the Biden administration, which used executive action to target price gouging in the meatpacking industry.

The Trump Justice Department’s decision to close the antitrust investigation came weeks before Trump, in a post on his social media platform, said earlier this month that he had instructed the DOJ to “immediately begin an investigation” into meatpacking companies. Just four corporations—Tyson, Cargill, JBS, and National Beef—control roughly 80% of the beef market in the United States.

Critics viewed the president’s announcement as a performative move intended to deflect criticism of his failure to take substantive action to bring down beef prices. Trump has falsely claimed that the prices of all grocery products are down except for beef.

The advocacy group Food & Water Watch noted that Trump’s call for a price-fixing probe came just three months after the Republican president “rescinded a Biden administration executive order meant to tackle these exact meatpacker abuses.”

“Farmers and consumers need real action to bring down prices and protect producers—not performative announcements,” said Tarah Heinzen. “If Trump is serious about investigating beef packers, his [US Department of Agriculture] must also vigorously defend the prior administration’s Packers and Stockyards Act rules.”

Farm Action, a watchdog that fights corporate abuses in the agriculture sector, said that DOJ probes of the kind ordered by Trump often “end quietly” without any meaningful action.

“For this one to matter, it must end with enforcement,” the group said last week. “If investigators uncover anticompetitive behavior, the DOJ has powerful tools to act. Under the Sherman Antitrust Act, it can take the packers to court, break them up, prosecute executives, force changes that protect farmers, and prevent further consolidation.”

“The law is clear,” Farm Action added, “what’s been missing is the political will to use it.”

Ecuador Voters Crush Right-Wing Push to Allow Return of US Military Bases

“It is, to date, the Noboa government’s biggest electoral defeat.”


People react following the first results of the referendum vote in Quito, Ecuador on November 16, 2025.
(Photo by Rodrigo Buendia/AFP via Getty Images)

Jake Johnson
Nov 17, 2025
COMMON DREAMS



Ecuador’s voters on Sunday delivered a major blow to right-wing President Daniel Noboa by decisively rejecting the proposed return of foreign military bases to the South American country’s soil—including installations run by the United States.

Around two-thirds of voters opposed the measure with most ballots tallied, a result that was widely seen as a surprise. Voters also rejected a separate effort to rewrite the country’s progressive 2008 constitution, which enshrined strong labor and environmental rights.

Trump Administration Has ‘Made the Decision to Attack Military Installations Inside Venezuela’: Report



Puerto Ricans Continue Protests Against US Militarism and War Threats

The stinging defeat for Noboa, an ally of US President Donald Trump, comes as the United States carries out an aggressive military buildup and deadly airstrike campaign in the Caribbean and the eastern Pacific—and weighs a direct attack on Venezuela. The BBC reported that the Trump administration “had hoped the referendum would pave the way to opening a military base in Ecuador, 16 years after it was made to close a site on its Pacific coast.”

“The former US military base on Ecuador’s Pacific coast was closed after left-wing President Rafael Correa decided not to renew its lease and pushed for the constitutional ban,” the outlet noted.

Correa celebrated Sunday’s results in a social media post, expressing hope that the vote would mark “the beginning of a definitive constitutional stability for the country.”

“Our constitution is one of the best in the world; we just need to comply with it,” he wrote.

The vote followed a recent trip to Ecuador by US Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, a prominent figure in the Trump administration’s lawless assault in immigrants in the United States. The Trump administration and Noboa’s government have ramped up cooperation efforts in recent months, and both governments have unleashed military forces on their own citizens, illegally repressed protests, and carried out enforced disappearances and other grave human rights violations.

During her visit to Ecuador earlier this month, Noem toured the site of what Noboa’s office described as a potential US military base in the port city of Manta.

The Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) said in a statement late Sunday that “by inviting direct US military involvement and permanent presence in military bases—framed as a partnership to combat drug trafficking and organized crime—Noboa has tied the country’s safety and sovereignty to Washington’s regional ambitions.”

“Today’s ‘no’ vote therefore underscores widespread public unease with that approach and reflects the Ecuadorian people’s skepticism toward the government’s heavy reliance on the Trump administration’s support,” CEPR continued. “More generally, this vote raises questions about the effects and popularity of the last few years of security rapprochement and cooperation between Ecuador and the United States, which include, among other agreements, a Statute of Forces Agreement signed in 2023 that enables the presence of—and grants immunity to—US forces in Ecuador.”

“It is, to date, the Noboa government’s biggest electoral defeat,” the group added.

Voters in Ecuador reject return of foreign military bases

Issued on: 17/11/2025 - FRANCE24

Ecuador has voted to reject the return of US military bases to the country, in a referendum on Sunday. On the ballot there was also a vote to cut funding for political parties and a separate measure to rewrite the country's constitution, which were both likewise voted down. Ellen Gainsford reports.