The Real Reason Colombia Folded

The first major international challenge to Donald Trump’s deportation plans came on Sunday, when Colombia’s President Gustavo Petro refused to allow a military plane of manacled illegal intruders on American soil to land and disgorge its fettered cargo. Petro denounced the repatriation attempt and proclaimed that he would not see Colombian citizens “treated like criminals” for having violated American immigration law. 

In response, Donald Trump immediately announced on social media that the U.S. would be implementing an aggressive wave of retaliatory measures:

Petro’s denial of these flights has jeopardized the National Security and Public Safety of the United States, so I have directed my Administration to immediately take the following urgent and decisive retaliatory measures:

-Emergency 25% tariffs on all goods coming into the United States. In one week, the 25% tariffs will be raised to 50%.

-A Travel Ban and immediate Visa Revocations on the Colombian Government Officials, and all Allies and Supporters.

-Visa Sanctions on all Party Members, Family Members, and Supporters of the Colombian Government.

-Enhanced Customs and Border Protection Inspections of all Colombian Nationals and Cargo on national security grounds.

-IEEPA Treasury, Banking and Financial Sanctions to be fully imposed. 

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!

The full suite of coercive tools Trump employed was breathtaking both in its scope and its immediacy. The United States is a major trade partner for Colombia, and the application of massive tariffs and sanctions would devastate the economy. Still, the economic threats are par for the course for Trump, who has long made a habit of using the power of the American economy as a tool for making political bargains. 

More interesting yet was the immediate suspension of Colombian visas, a direct strike against the Colombian political class. The United States is the playground for the wealthy and well-connected in the region—they vacation here, many have family and important business and political connections here, and most importantly, their children are educated here. Economic punishments, politicians can sell to the public as imperialist bullying by the United States—it might even play well to some sections of the populace. But the suspension of visas directly and immediately harms the most important and influential people in, around, and behind every Latin American government.

A glance at the headlines circulating among Colombia’s well-to-do confirms the facts. At time of writing, the top story of El Espectador consists of an article reassuring its audience that visa status is shortly to be normalized; the paper has run five additional stories on visas in the past two days, significantly more attention than was garnered by the potential tariffs threatened by the president. Much the same holds true for the other major paper of record in the country, El Tiempo: multiple major stories about visas, comparatively fewer about tariffs.

Petro responded on social media with a characteristic rambling, emotional response that accused Trump of wanting to kill him before defiantly asserting that “they inform me that you [President Trump] are placing a tariff of 50% on the fruit of our labor entering the U.S., and I will do the same.”

The threatened tariff war was not destined to take place. Faced with an internal crisis over the cancelled visas and looming economic threats, the Colombian government folded just one hour later and subsequently sent flights to pick up their erstwhile compatriots in return for avoiding sanctions and ending restrictions on visas and travel. Both sides ended by declaring a moral victory: Trump, that his administration had cowed the Colombian government into accepting repatriation flights, and Petro, that his government had picked up the Colombians in a manner that respected their dignity as Colombian citizens (though not before his social media assault unleashed a crisis in his government).

Trump has shown the world how serious he is about ensuring what he sees as American interests are respected, and that he’s willing to deploy what in previous administrations would have been considered overwhelming and disproportionate force to achieve it. Colombia provided a useful example, and despite Petro’s claims that he ultimately got what he wanted, other governments—in Latin America and elsewhere—will think twice about challenging the Trump administration on similar grounds.

After all, they want to be able to keep their kids at Harvard, too.