Gustavo Petro has yielded this Sunday night to the demands of Donald Trump and has agreed to receive flights with deportees in exchange for the United States not to impose a 25% tariff on Colombia to its imports. “The Colombian government has accepted all the terms of President Trump, including the unrestricted acceptance of all illegal foreigners in Colombia returning from the United States, even in US military aircraft, without limitations or delays,” said the White House. The Colombian government justified its refusal to accept deportees in which deportation conditions did not guarantee the dignity of the returnees.
The sanctions are written, according to Washington, and will remain in reserve and will not be signed, unless Colombia does not comply with this agreement. ” Colombian Foreign Minister Luis Gilberto Murillo, has been in charge of announcing in Bogotá that the crisis had been overcome, in a much more diplomatic and restrained way than his American colleagues: “We have overcome the Impasse With the United States government. In this context, Foreign Minister Luis Gilberto Murillo and Ambassador Daniel García-Peña will travel to the city of Washington in the next few days to hold high-level meetings to follow up the agreements, the result of the joint work that led to the exchange of diplomatic notes Between the two governments. We will continue to receive Colombians and Colombians who return as deported, guaranteeing decent conditions as citizens subject to rights. ”
Donald Trump had warned in the last weeks that he would impose tariffs to some countries as soon as he occupied the Oval Office of the White House. Canada, Mexico, China and even the European Union received with concern the notices of the new president of the United States, who has just released his second term. However, this Sunday was Colombia to be commercially beaten by the world’s first economy. Trump ordered to tax all Colombian products with 25% and raise the measure to 50% within a week. The tycoon showed that his pulse does not tremble when fulfilling his threats. It was not until the last minute of the day that this diplomatic confrontation was settled.
Anyway, the rest of the world is warned of what you can do in case you put obstacles to fulfill your electoral promises to combat irregular immigration. Trump had reacted in this brutal way to the Colombian government’s decision not to allow two military planes that transported deportees in Bogotá in Bogotá. Gustavo Petro justified him by ensuring that he will not accept them until the United States does not establish protocols to treat immigrants “with dignity and respect.”
Trump responded furiously. As an insult he called Petro “socialist”, a term that he receives proudly. To the economic sanctions had added bank and fiscal restrictions and the revocation of the visas of government officials. The subsequent statement of the White House indicates that the sanctions to the visas will remain in force until the first deportees loaded with success is returned with success. It is expected that it will be carried out this Monday, since Petro will send the presidential plane to bring those who had been returned today.
The announcement of the imposition of tariffs shocked the Colombian political and financial world. However, gathered at night, government members seemed confident in resolving the crisis. “This crisis is overcome today,” a source from the circle closest to Petro told El País. His advisors expected Trump’s measures not to become effective, as in the end it has happened. While the president lashed out at Trump and hinted that he wanted to make him a coup d’etat, Foreign Minister Luis Gilberto Murillo and the person who will replace him shortly, Laura Sarabia, kept an attitude of dialogue and broken to the conflict in front of the White House.
Colombia has been a strategic partner for the United States in Latin America. Washington has collaborated with the successive governments in the fight against guerrillas and drug trafficking. He sent an annual aid of about 600 million dollars. Petro, however, has been very ironic with what he considered a “servile” attitude of his predecessors. In a visit to New York during a UN General Assembly, in 2022, he was very criticized because he was late for a cocktail organized by Joe Biden and did not have the opportunity to greet him. When asked about that episode, he replied angry: “I am not one of those who will persecute him to the bathroom.”
Petro holds the United States for the death of hundreds of thousands of people in the continent for the war on drugs executed from the White House. He believes that it has been a mistake to combat posters without accompanying him with a public health policy. Its anti -imperialism also has roots in the ideological context in which it grew. In the eighties he was an activist and member of the M-19, an urban guerrillas. Although in his biography he says that he threw himself into the mountain to lead a front, the reality is that he was never a true man of arms. His wife, Verónica Alcocer, once referred to him during a meeting with his political strategists as a “left.” In his messages against Trump he has summoned Salvador Allende and Jorge Eliécer Gaitán, two politicians of his dead rope with whom he likes to compare himself. “It can with its economic strength and its pride try to give (me) a coup as they did with Allende. But I die in my law, I resisted torture and resist you, ”he wrote in the midst of an exchange of messages with Trump and some of his officials. Of course, at one point he assured that he would accept a whiskey to discuss more calmly.
If Trump’s threats, the shock Economic for Colombia would have been very strong. A quarter of their exports are destined for the United States. The bulk are oil, coffee and flowers. Only coffee imports are worth around 2,000 million dollars. These sectors depend hundreds of thousands of jobs. Although it should be noted that Colombia has a commercial deficit with the United States. Petro, in retaliation, ordered his minister of the branch to raise tariffs to US imports in 25% and assured that he will work so that these goods are replaced by national production. While the most moderate sector of his government chose to reduce the tone and find a solution before the matter was older, some of the congressmen of his coalition encouraged him to keep Trump’s pulse.
Brazil and Mexico are in a very similar situation regarding repatriations. The two nations are governed by presidents of lefts, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and Claudia Sheinbaum. In the crisis for the fraud of the elections in Venezuela, they two and Petro formed a progressive front that tried to find an agreed exit for Chavismo (without any success). That alliance could be repeated to face Trump’s aggressive policies. Lula did not prevent a flight with Brazilian deportees from landing in his country, but then sent a protest note ensuring that the treatment they received from the United States immigration service (ICE) was humiliating. During the flight they were handcuffed.
Trump has made a very clear warning to those who hinder their antimigration policies, an issue on which much of its electoral campaign were. The exemplary punishment has been for Petro, which has suddenly been involved in one of its greatest crises since it came to power. Although in his messages he faced the president of the United States directly, the feeling is that he has ended up yielding to Trump’s wishes.
