Donald Trump sparked a burst of reprisal measures against Colombia, including 25% tariffs on its goods, after the Latin American country refused entry to US military flights expelling migrants.
Colombia’s leftist president Gustavo Petro quickly replied with a reciprocal threat of 50% tariffs on goods in the United States.
The row began when Petro said in a position on X that deported migrants should be treated with “dignity and respect”.
“We will receive our fellow citizens on civil aircraft, without treating them as criminals.”
Colombia had already refused American military planes carrying deportees this week, Petro said on Sunday.
Trump replied by accusing Petro in an article on Truth Social of danger of endangering “national security and public security in the United States”.
He announced emergency rates by 25% that would increase 50% in a week, in parallel with a travel ban and “revocations of immediate visas” for Colombian government officials “and all allies and supporters”.
“These measures are just the start,” said Trump. “We will not allow the Colombian government to violate its legal obligations with regard to the acceptance and return of criminals they have forced to the United States!”
“Your blockade does not scare me because Colombia, beyond being a country of beauty, is also the heart of the world,” wrote Petro in a long message on X.
He also said he was visiting the United States “boring” in an apparent blow during Washington’s taxation of travel restrictions. “Take me back, president [Trump]And the Americas and humanity will respond. »»
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Petro was initially authorized expulsion flights to cancel them while they were in the air.
“As the actions of today show, we are unshakable in our commitment to end illegal immigration and strengthen the security of the borders of America,” he said.
Will Freeman, a Latin American study scholarship holder at the Council for Foreign Relations, noted that Colombia sends almost a third of its exports to the United States “therefore this emergency rate and the threat of lifting it more is serious ”.
“This shows that wherever Trump administration identifies the United States which still has a lever effect, it will use it as much as possible to comply with its mass expulsion policy.”
Trump has promised to make the greatest mass deportation of illegal migrants in the history of the United States, which caused uncertainty among the 11 million undocumented immigrants in the United States and the resistance of potential partners from the region.
Petro’s announcement one day occurred after the Brazilian government has condemned the use of handcuffs as “degrading” on its nationals on an expulsion flight from the United States.
Friday, the plane made an unexpected stop in Manaus due to technical problems, Brasília said that it prevented the flight from continuing to its final destination of Belo Horizonte due to wrists, “bad condition” The plane and the “anger” of the 88 Brazilian citizens on their “unworthy treatment”.
The Brazilian Minister of Justice said that there had been a “blatant lack of respect for the fundamental rights of Brazilian citizens”.
Although Colombia and the United States have long been close allies – with Washington providing around $ 10 billion in military and foreign aid to Bogotá as part of its plan, Colombia was aimed at fighting insurgents and traffickers drugs between 1999 and 2016 – Trump and Petro are ideologically opposed.
“It is important for Petro and many Latin American leaders to be resisting this migration policy,” said Sergio Guzmán, director of Colombia Risk Analysis, a Bogotá-based advice. “Petro tries to show the strength and project an ideological difference with Trump.”
The flow of migrants to the north through the gap of Darién, a section of jungle that separates Colombia and Panama, has dropped in the past year, as is the number of illegal passages in the United States.
Last year, 302,000 migrants crossed the Darién gap, down more than 40% in 2023, according to the Panama Foreign Ministry of Foreign Affairs, following a repression of the Panamanian authorities on the road which is controlled by criminal smuggling groups.
But many migrants have used legal paths opened by the Biden administration to cross the United States, and the overall number of migrants is still close to recent record heights.
Mexico is negotiating with the United States on immigration and drugs to try to avoid a 25% rate on its exports to the United States from next week.
The Ministry of Mexico for Foreign Affairs said on Friday that it would always welcome Mexicans with open arms, after NBC News reported that he had refused to take over a military migrant flight.
Mexican president Claudia Sheinbaum Stressed that even if it does not agree with the deportations, Mexico will cooperate with the United States and will have a “good” relationship with the Trump administration.
Tom Homan, Trump’s tsar border, told ABC News on Sunday if the host countries refuse to receive migrants, “then we will place them in a third safe country”.
