Key points
- President Trump has threatened major sanctions against Colombia
- US has stopped issuing visas at embassy in Colombia: Rubio
- Colombia’s president also announced sanctions against US products
- Trump promised to impose tariffs on products from Colombia
WASHINGTON: The White House has said that Colombia backed down and agreed to accept repatriated citizens on military flights, after President Donald Trump threatened major sanctions.
There was no immediate confirmation from Colombia to the announcement by the White House, which said it would freeze most plans for tariffs and sanctions on Latin America’s fourth largest economy.
Colombia has agreed to “unrestricted acceptance of all illegal aliens from Colombia returned from the United States, including on US military aircraft, without limitation or delay,” a White House statement said.
Earlier, on Sunday, US President Donald Trump ordered sweeping tariffs and sanctions against Colombia in retaliation for its refusal to accept military deportation flights, seeking to punish one of his most defiant critics in Latin America.
Colombia’s President Gustavo Petro did not back down, announcing his own tariffs against US products, as he vowed that returning migrants be treated with dignity.
Trump, back in office for less than a week, promised to impose 25 per cent tariffs on products from Colombia — the source of one-fifth of coffee in the United States — and to raise them to 50 per cent in a week.
Free-trade agreement
It was unclear how quickly the tariffs would come as Colombia, historically one of Washington’s closest allies in Latin America, enjoys a free-trade agreement with the United States.
“These measures are just the beginning. We will not allow the Colombian Government to violate its legal obligations with regard to the acceptance and return of the criminals they forced into the United States!” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform.
Not to be outdone, Petro, a former leftist guerrilla, said he had instructed his minister for external trade “to raise tariffs on imports from the US to 25 per cent.”
In a long broadside on X addressed to Trump he declared: “You will never dominate us.”
The United States also suspended the issuance of visas at its embassy in Colombia, part of a series of harsh measures after Bogota refused military deportation flights, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said.
Military deportation flights
“Measures will continue until Colombia meets its obligations to accept the return of its own citizens,” Rubio said in a statement.
Trump — who during his campaign said that immigrants were “poisoning the blood” of the United States — took office with promises to round up and swiftly deport undocumented people.
While some countries including Guatemala have accepted military deportation flights, Trump has faced resistance from Petro, elected in 2022.
“The United States cannot treat Colombian migrants as criminals. I forbid entry to our territory to US planes carrying Colombian migrants,” Petro wrote earlier on X.
Petro said he had “turned back US military planes.” Trump said two US planes were not allowed to land.
Undocumented Americans
The Colombian government said it was instead ready to send its presidential plane to the United States to transport the migrants “with dignity.”
Petro said he was also ready to allow civilian US flights carrying deported migrants to land, as long as those aboard were not treated “like criminals.”
He additionally urged what he said were the more than 15,600 undocumented Americans living in his country to “regularize their situation,” while ruling out raids to arrest and deport them.
Petro’s Colombian critics reacted furiously to what they saw as his reckless rumble with Trump.
Former president Ivan Duque accused Petro of “an act of tremendous irresponsibility” for refusing what he called Colombia’s “moral duty” to take back illegal migrants and warned US sanctions would take an “enormous” toll.
