Who Really Won? Inside Trump’s Tense Standoff with Colombia
The U.S. government is projecting a perceived increase in deportations of undocumented people. And now, it is drawing in conflict with other world leaders. Colombian President Gustavo Petro is the latest world leader to clash with the new Trump administration. He denied landing two planes with deportees in Colombia.
Colombia’s decision over the weekend caused tensions between the two countries. As things calmed, Colombia and the U.S. reached an agreement, but who won the standoff?
Colombia and the U.S. have reached an agreement on accepting deportees
Colombia has agreed to receive deportees from the U.S. after a weekend of jabs on social media between Colombian President Petro and U.S. President Donald Trump. The two world leaders publicly sparred on social media over the weekend. This happened after Petro denied two military planes with deportees clearance to land in Colombia.
Moving forward, the Colombian government has demanded that the deportees be treated with respect and transported in humane conditions. Furthermore, President Petro demanded that deported Colombian nationals should not be flown on military planes while handcuffed to give them dignity.
“We have overcome the impasse with the United States government,” Colombian Foreign Minister Luis Gilberto Murillo said in a statement. He added: “We will continue to receive Colombians who return as deportees, guaranteeing them decent conditions as citizens subject to rights.”
Additionally, the Colombian government announced that it was willing to send the presidential plane to the U.S. to help bring Colombian nationals back.
So, why was there an intense social media conflict?
The dust-up between Colombia President Petro and U.S. President Trump started when military planes with deportees attempted to land in Colombia. After being denied, the world leaders took to social media to send threats and fight. Colombian President Petro’s viral tweet expressed his sentiment to the newly inaugurated U.S. president.
“I don’t like your oil, Trump. It is going to wipe out the human species because of greed,” read part of the tweet. “Maybe one day, over a drink of whisky, which I accept despite my gastritis, we can talk frankly about this, but that would be difficult because you consider me to be an inferior race, and I am not, and neither is any Colombian.”
U.S. President Trump fired back on Truth Social, threatening punitive tariffs of 25 percent on goods coming into the U.S. from Colombia. If Colombia did not comply within a week, the U.S. president threatened to up the tariffs to 50 percent.
In response, Colombian President Petro threatened to match any U.S. sanctions on American goods entering Colombia.
A quick reminder to everyone: tariff threats only hurt consumers and producers because they are taxes placed on businesses and then transferred to consumers. So, two world leaders threatening tariffs has little impact on them but a big impact on consumers’ dollars.
An emerging immigration playbook for the new administration
It remains to be seen if the new administration will replicate the formula. However, this new dustup between Colombia and the U.S. seems to be laying down the framework for U.S. President Trump’s immigration plan. He has promised mass deportations that would remove millions of people from the U.S., but it was always a question of how other countries would respond. Threatening tariffs to hurt economies and consumers seemed to work in bringing Colombia to the table, with the U.S. making some concessions.
The U.S. is Colombia’s largest trading partner. In 2006, the two countries made a free trade agreement that created $33.8 billion in two-way trade and gave the U.S. a $1.6 billion trade surplus, according to Reuters.
