Colombia’s President Gustavo Petro arrives on the opening ceremony of COP16, a United Nations’ biodiversity convention, in Cali, Colombia, Oct. 20, 2024.
Fernando Vergara/AP
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Fernando Vergara/AP
BOGOTA, Colombia — The White Home claimed victory in a showdown with Colombia over accepting flights of deported migrants from the U.S. on Sunday, hours after President Donald Trump threatened steep tariffs on imports and different sanctions on the longtime U.S. companion.
Lengthy shut companions in anti-narcotics efforts, the U.S. and Colombia clashed Sunday over the deportation of migrants and imposed tariffs on one another’s items in a present of what different nations might face in the event that they intervene within the Trump administration’s crackdown on unlawful immigration. The White Home held up the episode as a warning to different nations who would possibly search to impede his plans.
Earlier, the U.S. president had ordered visa restrictions, 25% tariffs on all Colombian incoming items, which might be raised to 50% in a single week, and different retaliatory measures sparked by President Gustavo Petro’s determination to reject two Colombia-bound U.S. navy plane carrying migrants after Petro accused Trump of not treating immigrants with dignity throughout deportation. Petro additionally introduced a retaliatory 25% enhance in Colombian tariffs on U.S. items.
Trump stated the measures had been needed as a result of Petro’s determination “jeopardized” nationwide safety within the U.S. by blocking the deportation flights.
“These measures are just the start,” Trump wrote on his social media platform Fact Social. “We is not going to permit the Colombian Authorities to violate its authorized obligations with regard to the acceptance and return of the Criminals they pressured into the US.”
Press secretary Karoline Leavitt stated in a late Sunday assertion that the “Authorities of Colombia has agreed to all of President Trump’s phrases, together with the unrestricted acceptance of all unlawful aliens from Colombia returned from the US, together with on U.S. navy plane, with out limitation or delay.”
Leavitt stated the tariff orders will probably be “held in reserve, and never signed.” However Leavitt stated Trump would keep visa restrictions on Colombian officers and enhanced customs inspections of products from the nation, “till the primary planeload of Colombian deportees is efficiently returned.”
The Colombian authorities late Sunday stated it thought of as “overcome” the episode with the Trump administration and Petro reposted the assertion from the White Home on X.
“Now we have overcome the deadlock with the US authorities,” stated Colombian International Minister Luis Gilberto Murillo. “We’ll proceed to obtain Colombians who return as deportees, guaranteeing them respectable situations as residents topic to rights.”
Murillo added that the South American nation’s presidential plane is accessible to facilitate the return of migrants who had been to reach hours earlier on the U.S. navy airplanes.
Earlier Sunday, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio introduced he was authorizing the visa restrictions on Colombian authorities officers and their households “who had been accountable for the interference of U.S. repatriation flight operations.” They had been being imposed on prime of the State Division’s transfer to droop the processing of visas on the U.S. Embassy in Colombia’s capital, Bogota.
Petro had stated earlier that his authorities wouldn’t settle for flights carrying migrants deported from the U.S. till the Trump administration creates a protocol that treats them with “dignity.” Petro made the announcement in two X posts, considered one of which included a information video of migrants reportedly deported to Brazil strolling on a tarmac with restraints on their palms and toes.
“A migrant shouldn’t be a felony and have to be handled with the dignity {that a} human being deserves,” Petro stated. “That’s the reason I returned the U.S. navy planes that had been carrying Colombian migrants… In civilian planes, with out being handled like criminals, we are going to obtain our fellow residents.”
After Trump’s earlier tariff menace, Petro stated in a put up on X that he had ordered the “overseas commerce minister to boost import tariffs from the U.S. by 25%.”
Colombia has historically been the U.S.’s prime ally in Latin America. However their relationship has strained since Petro, a former guerrilla, grew to become Colombia’s first leftist president in 2022 and sought distance from the U.S.
Colombia accepted 475 deportation flights from the U.S. from 2020 to 2024, fifth behind Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico and El Salvador, in response to Witness on the Border, an advocacy group that tracks flight knowledge. It accepted 124 deportation flights in 2024.
Colombia can be among the many nations that final yr started accepting U.S.-funded deportation flights from Panama.
The U.S. authorities did not instantly reply to a request for remark from The Related Press concerning plane and protocols utilized in deportations to Colombia.
“This can be a clear message we’re sending that nations have an obligation to just accept repatriation flights,” a senior administration official instructed AP. The official spoke on the situation of anonymity as a result of they weren’t licensed to debate challenge publicly.
Rubio in a press release stated Petro “canceled his authorization” for the flights when the plane had been within the air.
Colombians emerged in recent times as a significant presence on the U.S. border with Mexico, aided partly by a visa regime that permits them to simply fly to Mexico and keep away from trekking although the treacherous Darien Hole. They ranked fourth with 127,604 arrests for unlawful crossings throughout a 12-month interval by means of September, behind Mexicans, Guatemalans and Venezuelans.
Mexico hasn’t imposed visa restrictions on Colombians, as they’ve on Venezuelans, Ecuadoreans and Peruvians.
Petro’s authorities in a press release later introduced that the South American nation’s presidential plane had been made accessible to facilitate the return of migrants who had been to reach hours earlier on the U.S. navy airplanes and assure them “dignified situations.”
As a part of a flurry of actions to make good on Trump’s marketing campaign guarantees to crack down on unlawful immigration, his authorities is utilizing active-duty navy to assist safe the border and perform deportations.
Two U.S. Air Drive C-17 cargo planes carrying migrants faraway from the U.S. touched down early Friday in Guatemala. That very same day, Honduras obtained two deportation flights carrying a complete of 193 folks.
Colombia is the U.S.’s fourth-largest abroad provider of crude oil, transport about 209,000 barrels of oil per day final yr, though booming home manufacturing has diminished the U.S.’ dependence on overseas oil. The South American nation can be the U.S.’s largest provider of contemporary reduce flowers.
