President Donald Trump said yesterday that he will raise tariffs on Colombia and halt remaining financial support to the country, deepening a feud over counternarcotics policy.
Trump called leftist Colombian President Gustavo Petro an “illegal drug leader,” accusing his government of “making drugs rather than fighting them.”
Trump said details of the tariff increases will be announced today, alongside a suspension of “all payments” to Colombia.
Trump lashed out after Petro accused the US of murdering a Colombian fisherman in one of the unprecedented attacks by the US military on alleged narco-trafficking boats in the Caribbean that began in September.
US intelligence sharing and operational cooperation has been pivotal to Colombia’s security.
That now hangs in the balance along with economic aid.
Since the launch of Plan Colombia in 2000, the US has financed aerial surveillance, special forces units and rural stabilization programs that weakened insurgent groups and allowed the state to reassert control over formerly ungoverned territories.
A rupture with the US now could create an operational vacuum benefiting armed factions financed by narcotrafficking, which have already expanded into zones abandoned by state forces during the past two years.
Relations between Petro and the Trump administration have deteriorated sharply this year.
Petro’s US visa was revoked after he urged US soldiers to “disobey Trump’s order” during remarks at a pro-Palestinian rally in New York City on 26 September.
He was in the city to attend the United Nations General Assembly, during which he used his speech to accuse the US of using violence to dominate Latin America and suggest that innocent Colombian nationals may have been killed in the earlier US attacks on drug boats.
The week before Petro’s UN address, the Trump administration placed Colombia on its list of countries failing to cooperate in counternarcotics efforts, drawing a line under three decades of close cooperation in the war on drugs.
Trump said blame for the supposed backsliding rested “solely with Colombia’s political leadership,” citing the rapid expansion of coca cultivation and limited eradication efforts under Petro.
Petro, a former leftist rebel, pushed back during a televised cabinet meeting, claiming Colombia was being punished unfairly by Washington.
Developments should be monitored.
