Bogotá, Colombia – On Sunday, a dramatic confrontation between U.S. President Donald Trump and his Colombian counterpart, Gustavo Petro, captured the world’s consideration.
Petro, who turned again two U.S. navy flights carrying deported Colombians, was pressured to again down after Trump introduced retaliatory tariffs and sanctions.
However whereas the White Home lauded Petro’s concessions as a victory, Colombia’s president could search additional confrontations with Trump and attempt to reshape relations between the 2 historic allies.
Since its independence, Colombia has been thought of one in every of Washington’s firmest allies in Latin America, with the 2 nations having fun with shut navy, political and industrial ties.
This friendship appears to be going through its greatest problem but. Petro, a leftist former guerrilla, and Trump, a right-wing billionaire, have little ideological frequent floor.
Add to this each leaders’ populist tendencies and reputations for impulsive late-night tweeting, and the possibilities of a confrontation enhance.
In Colombia, Trump’s November election victory was met with fears in regards to the nation’s relationship with its most necessary ally.
Issues included tariffs, migration and assist. All of those fears have been vindicated throughout Trump’s first week in workplace.
Petro has been scolded domestically for rocking the boat together with his rejection of the migrant flights. The chief of a comparatively small nation on the world stage determined to antagonize Trump whereas even the world’s strongest nations try to court him.
Sergio Guzmán, Director of Colombia Threat Evaluation, explains that Petro doubtless underestimated Washington’s response.
“In hindsight, I don’t assume he anticipated Trump to be so drastic,” the analyst instructed Latin America Stories.
With Colombia’s authorities agreeing late on Sunday to permit the deportation flights, it might appear that Petro had capitulated.
However Guzmán means that for Colombia’s president, the dispute is probably not over but.
In a word despatched to Colombia Threat Evaluation’ purchasers, Guzmán warned that “Petro is more likely to search new factors of confrontation with Trump in worldwide boards.”
In addition to migration, there are a number of areas the place the 2 governments might conflict, from local weather change to report coca cultivation.
Katherin Galindo, a Colombian safety analyst, highlighted how Trump threatened Colombia with decertification over coca plantations throughout his first time period and that these have continued to extend since then.
“In his final time period, he was form of threatening Colombia with decertification, as a result of crops have been rising throughout that point and this [increase] is continuous to occur proper now,” Galindo instructed Latin America Stories.
Trump’s choose for Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, fuels fears of additional disputes between the 2 nations.
The previous Florida Senator has been outspoken in his disapproval of the Colombian president and his relations with Nicolás Maduro, referring to him as “Gustavo Chávez” and blaming him for destabilizing the area.
Colombia’s president has additionally criticized Washington’s high diplomat, in 2019 calling him the “expression of essentially the most backward sectors of U.S. politics.”
Given these stress factors between Washington and Bogotá, Guzmán believes that Petro may search to cut back Colombia’s dependence on the U.S..
The plain choice is China, whose ambassador to Colombia instructed El Tiempo on Sunday that the 2 nations have been having fun with “one of the best second for our diplomatic relations.”
Petro’s administration has been courting China for properly over a yr; in 2023, the 2 signed a symbolic “strategic partnership” representing their want for nearer relations.
A yr later, in October 2024, Colombia and China introduced a joint working group beneath which the 2 nations are collaborating on plans for the previous to accede to the Belt and Highway Initiative.
However the President of the American Chamber of Commerce in Colombia (AmCham), María Claudia Lacouture, doubted the feasibility of changing Washington with Beijing.
“To cease shopping for the merchandise we import… will not be a course of that occurs… ‘in a single day’,” Lacouture instructed Latin America Stories.
She notes that 70% of U.S. items imported by Colombia aren’t produced domestically and are used as inputs for trade.
“If we modify our provider, we must import these inputs from different nations at greater costs, with the consequence being greater inflation that may have an effect on all Colombians, particularly these with decrease incomes,” defined Lacouture.
As a substitute of making ready for the fallout from attainable feuds between Trump and Petro, the AmCham President advocated diplomacy and containment.
“The problem… is to work to construct, in a proactive method, upon the frequent points and considerations of the 2 governments, utilizing dialogue and applicable diplomatic channels” commented Lacouture.
She believes there’s frequent floor to be discovered on migration and counter-narcotics initiatives.
Lacouture hopes that, with the involvement of networks of diplomats, congresspeople and enterprise leaders, Bogotá and Washington can “keep away from disproportionate choices that have an effect on hundreds of thousands of residents in an unfair method.”
