Loop outputting blank variables - SSH Bash - bash

Question

I am writing a script to help me sync files between my home pc and my server. One of the problems ive run into is that, when I run the for loop, it outputs blank lines.
Everything else seems to be fine, echo $REMOTE lists all files and their full paths as expected. I have tried unquoting, quoting, Changing EOF from "EOF" to EOF etc, but so far nothing has worked.
Here is the script below:
function uploadDownload()
{
if [ "$1" == "d" ]; then
ssh -i ~/Dropbox/Business/aws/first.pem ubuntu#XXXX.194.202 << EOF
echo $REMOTE
for file in $REMOTE; do
echo $file
done
EOF
#scp -r -i ~/Dropbox/Business/aws/first.pem ubuntu#XXXX.194.202:$REMOTE $LOCAL
elif [ "$1" == "u" ]; then
scp -r -i ~/Dropbox/Business/aws/first.pem $LOCAL ubuntu#XXXX.194.202:$REMOTE
fi
}
if [ "$2" == "m" ]; then
if [ -z "$3" ]; then
echo "Please enter the local location of the files and provide an absolute path..."
read LOCAL
echo "Please enter the remote location of the files..."
read REMOTE
uploadDownload
else
LOCAL=$2
if [ -z "$4" ]; then
REMOTE=$3
else
REMOTE='ubuntu#XXXX.194.202:~/test/'
fi
uploadDownload
fi
else
LOCAL='/home/will/Dropbox/Business/aws/files/binaryhustle/'
REMOTE='/home/ubuntu/dev/binaryhustle/*'
uploadDownload $1
fi
EDIT: based on advice I have edited the uploadDownload function. I should also note than I tested echo "$REMOTE"; outside of the loop and it returns nothing (unlike without quotes, where it returns something).
function uploadDownload()
{
if [ "$1" == "d" ]; then
ssh -i ~/Dropbox/Business/aws/first.pem ubuntu#54.252.194.202 << EOF
for file in "/home/ubuntu/dev/binaryhustle"; do
echo $file
done
EOF
#scp -r -i ~/Dropbox/Business/aws/first.pem ubuntu#54.252.194.202:$REMOTE $LOCAL
elif [ "$1" == "u" ]; then
scp -r -i ~/Dropbox/Business/aws/first.pem $LOCAL ubuntu#54.252.194.202:$REMOTE
fi
}

Answer 1

Try to quote your variable $file as it is expanded before being sent to the remote server:
echo $file
To
echo \$file
Or better yet
echo \"\$file\"

Answer 2

You may want to take a look at unison. Its powerful file syncing tool able to work over ssh. It doesn't do any content diff though.

Answer 3

Credit to #konsolebox for getting me half way there, I got it working by adding the slash to file, however this did not work with << EOF , only <
function uploadDownload()
{
if [ "$1" == "d" ]; then
ssh -i ~/Dropbox/Business/aws/first.pem ubuntu#54.252.194.202 <<EOF
for file in "$REMOTE"; do
echo \$file
done
EOF
#scp -r -i ~/Dropbox/Business/aws/first.pem ubuntu#54.252.194.202:$REMOTE $LOCAL
elif [ "$1" == "u" ]; then
scp -r -i ~/Dropbox/Business/aws/first.pem $LOCAL ubuntu#54.252.194.202:$REMOTE
fi
}