By Wednesday morning, Gutiérrez, who led a botched coup attempt in 2000, was pledging strong cooperation with the United States on a variety of issues, including a bitter dispute over $200 million that foreign oil companies operating in Ecuador claim is owed to them. ''The president of Ecuador wants to become the best friend and the best ally of the United States in the permanent and implacable fight against drug trafficking, terrorism, reducing poverty and strengthening democracy,'' Gutiérrez said.
U.S. officials said the welcome given Gutiérrez reflects their growing concern about turmoil in Latin America and their wish that Gutiérrez does not follow in the troublesome footsteps of another former army officer, President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela, whose rule is plunging his country into civil conflict. ''He's gotten a great showing,'' a senior State Department official said, speaking of the Gutiérrez visit. ``I frankly think it's because people are concerned about Latin America.''
Analysts said wariness in Washington about Gutiérrez, his coup-plotting past and his leftist campaign rhetoric has lifted as U.S. officials see his economic approach and such corruption-fighting proposals as one to put all state contracts on the Internet. ''Washington wants to see this man succeed,'' said Steve Johnson, a Latin America policy analyst at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank in the capital. Ecuador has struggled with instability. When Gutiérrez came to office Jan. 15, after winning a surprisingly strong popular vote, he became the sixth president since 1996. [End]