More than two weeks after President Donald Trump stated he would halt “all payments” to Colombia, there has not been any interruption to the help, even after the administration sanctioned the nation’s President Gustavo Petro accusing him of taking part in a “role in the global illicit drug trade.”
There is no complete ongoing interagency evaluate of all of the US help packages to Colombia being carried out, US officers stated. They pointed to a robust country-to-country relationship, constructed on a long time of funding and singled out Petro as the most important obstacle to shoring up the joint efforts to sort out illicit drug manufacturing and trafficking contained in the nation.
Days after Trump’s social media publish deeming Petro a drug trafficker and calling for a chopping of all funds and subsidies to the nation, there was an interagency assembly deliberate with all of the Cabinet heads to talk about US assist to Columbia, US officers stated. But that assembly was canceled for unknown causes and has not been rescheduled.
The axing of the inter-agency assembly meant that Trump’s nationwide safety adviser and Secretary of State Marco Rubio – who has been instrumental to the administration’s general coverage strategy to the area – was once more left as essentially the most influential voice within the president’s ear in shaping the coverage. Rubio’s employees started working with the Treasury Department to rapidly put sanctions on Petro into place, sources stated.
Rubio, following Trump’s preliminary Truth Social publish, publicly cited the “excellent” US-Colombia relationship, based on robust partnership.
When requested in regards to the standing of the coverage, a senior administration official highlighted to the nation’s issue tackling drug trafficking underneath Petro’s management, and pointed to a evaluate of US help on the presidential degree.
“Despite billions of US taxpayer dollars invested in Colombia’s counterdrug efforts, cartels are thriving under President Petro’s failed policies. President Trump is carefully reviewing every program and only investing in projects that show clear value to protecting US citizens,” the official stated.
“The politics of Colombia are not actually reflected by the current president,” Rubio stated as he ready to head to Asia with Trump. “Our problem with the current president, in addition to his behavior, which has been erratic and counterproductive, is that in fact he is not cooperating on our counter-drug, and we felt that was best addressed at the individual level.”
Rubio’s remarks got here as a aid to US officers who had been privately hoping that the administration would climb down and draw a distinction between penalizing the nation and concentrating on the actions and bellicose rhetoric of the president.
Rubio went on to say that the concentrating on of Petro – whom he known as a “hostile foreign leader” – is “separate” from any effort to punish the joint efforts on the working degree between the 2 international locations, which the US has invested in for many years.
While the administration has pointed to each Colombia and Venezuela as driving the drug commerce, their strategy to tackling the issue in every nation tremendously differs as a result of of contrasting diplomatic histories. Tough sanctions have been imposed on Venezuela by each Republican and Democratic administrations given a rupture in diplomatic relations after the nation’s National Assembly declared Nicolás Maduro was not the nation’s reputable chief in 2019, which was a place the US backed.
And, in 2024, the US accused Maduro of stealing the nation’s election.
Meanwhile, US-Colombia relations stay intact regardless of tensions on the prime. Trump administration officers have additionally drawn up plans for strikes inside Venezuela, whereas there are not any plans for a similar type of motion inside Colombia.
Trump administration officers are keenly conscious of the political calendar in South America’s largest nation: Petro’s presidency will finish subsequent 12 months as he is constitutionally barred from working for a second time period within the 2026 presidential election.
“Our relationships with the people of Colombia, the economic sector of Colombia, the majority of people in politics in Colombia, and their institutions, in particular their defense institutions, are strong and enduring, and they’re going to be strong and enduring long after this individual is no longer the president there,” Rubio stated.
Trump’s anger in direction of Petro comes after the Colombian chief has taken on the US president very personally as well as to harshly criticizing the administration’s drug warfare and its assist for Israel. US officers have been surprised and indignant when Petro joined pro-Palestinian protests in New York in September and known as on US troopers to “disobey the orders of Trump.” It prompted the US to revoke Petro’s visa.
But days later, again in Colombia, the left-wing chief doubled down.
“If Mr. Trump keeps being complicit in the genocide, as he is up to today, he deserves nothing but jail, and his army should not obey him,” Petro stated in Bogota.
Petro’s hostile stance in direction of Trump continued as the US drug boat strikes within the Caribbean have continued at a steady pace for the final two months. After one strike he accused the US of murdering a Colombian fisherman, fueling tensions and finally triggering Trump to declare that the US would halt funds to the nation.
NCS has reported that no less than one US navy strike within the Caribbean during the last two months targeted Colombian nationals on a boat that had left from Colombia, in accordance to two folks briefed by the Pentagon in regards to the strikes.
The ‘failures and incompetence’ of Petro
When the US rolled out sanctions towards Petro and two of his relations in current weeks, Rubio additionally formally decertified Colombia as a companion in combatting drug trafficking. But the State Department’s language asserting the decertification made clear that US assist for the nation’s establishments are anticipated to endure.
“We remain steadfast in our support for Colombian security forces, its justice sector, and departmental and municipal officials, and we will continue to partner with them in our joint efforts to combat drug trafficking,” the State Department announcement stated. “Today’s decision is not a reflection on these institutions but rather the failures and incompetence of Gustavo Petro and his inner circle.”
The senior administration pointed to the sanctioning of Petro and his household as a Trump determination after the Colombian president failed to strengthen efforts to sort out the drug downside.
“The decision to impose sanctions on Petro and his family was ultimately made at the Presidential level, as is every action. President Trump made it clear that Colombia is ‘failing demonstrably’ to uphold its drug control responsibilities, and Petro has since doubled down in defense of his failed policies,” the official stated.
Some US international help to the nation had already stopped after the destruction of the US Agency for International Development (USAID) early in Trump’s second time period. However, the US has continued to present funding from the State and Defense departments, together with on counternarcotics. The US has supplied about $210 million in help to Colombia this fiscal 12 months, together with about $31 million in agricultural assist, in accordance to data from the US Department of State.
While US officers imagine that the technique to goal Petro as a substitute of the entire of Colombia’s safety establishments is settled in the intervening time, they warn that issues might at all times rapidly change.
Speaking a day after Rubio final month, Sen. Lindsey Graham stated that Trump believes that each Venezuela and Colombia “have been safe havens for narco-terrorists for too long.” Graham added, throughout his CBS interview, that Trump stated there have been plans to transient members of Congress after his journey to Asia “about future potential military operations against Venezuela and Colombia.”
The US has been working to set up the shut relationship it has with Colombia for the reason that late Nineties. The Clinton administration launched Plan Colombia in 2000, which was a $1.3 billion program primarily to assist the navy and safety forces’ battle towards rising and trafficking narcotics.
But earlier than that interval in 1997 the US had minimize off help to Colombia and decertified it as companion in combatting drug trafficking. Many mirrored that the motion didn’t produce the meant outcomes.
“US officials concluded that we actually did more damage to ourselves by cutting off assistance to Colombia than actually punish Ernesto Samper,” stated Juan Gonzalez, a former NSC official centered on the Western Hemisphere through the Biden administration who is at present a fellow on the Georgetown Americas Institute.
The US assist to the Colombian police was strong earlier than that cutoff: serving to pay for judicialized wiretaps, coaching police and vetting them. Gonzalez stated that the cutoff in help throughout that interval of time restricted the US Department of Justice’s skill construct instances towards the cartels inside of Colombia.
Experts say that at present’s continued funding to Colombia’s safety and protection forces – which incorporates ongoing intelligence sharing between the 2 nations – is crucial to obtain the administration’s personal objectives for preventing drug trafficking.
Elizabeth Dickinson, the International Crisis Group’s senior analyst for Colombia, stated the US assist on protection is “really, really significant.”
“We’re talking about two militaries that are deeply integrated and cooperating, and they work more closely together, I think, than any other country that the US works with that’s not in NATO,” she instructed NCS. “We’re talking about sort of an institutional relationship, sharing of intelligence, sharing of capabilities, day to day collaboration on logistics, operations.”
“If that were to go by the wayside,” Dickinson stated, “the capability of the Colombian security forces would be debilitated significantly” at a time when the nation is going through main safety challenges.
And if intelligence sharing have been to be minimize, it might depart the US “flying blind,” she stated.
“85% of all actionable intelligence that the US uses to interdict drugs in the Caribbean comes from Colombia,” Dickinson stated.
“If you are not sharing humint (human intelligence), electronic intel on shipments, routes, organizations, schedules, methods – you’re cutting off what’s needed to do the stated thing you want to do – stop the flow,” a former US diplomat who labored on the problem instructed NCS.
Another former US diplomat who labored on the problem stated chopping the safety funding can be “cutting one’s nose to spite one’s face.”