Trump vs Colombia: ‘America First’ in action?

Well, that escalated quickly.

Everything was apparently all agreed between the US and Colombia. On Sunday, two US military planes were heading south, to deport an unspecified number of migrants to Colombia. But at some point during the weekend, something changed. President Gustavo Petro’s government suddenly decided to deny the US aircraft access to Colombian airspace, forcing the planes to fly back to the US.

In response, US president Donald Trump reached for what he once described as the ‘most beautiful word in the dictionary’: tariffs. In a social-media post, he said the US would immediately impose tariffs of 25 per cent on all Colombian imports, before raising the rate to 50 per cent after a week, should the Colombian government continue to turn away the flights. He also said the US would impose banking and financial sanctions, plus a travel ban, on Colombian government officials.

Petro, playing up to his image as a leftist firebrand, then retaliated in kind. He promised to impose a tariff of 25 per cent on all US imports that would also soon rise to 50 per cent. Channelling his inner New York Times op-ed writer, he then called Trump a ‘white slaver’, who was on course to ‘wipe out the human species because of greed’.

The stand-off lasted for a few hours or so. And then, just like that, Colombia backed down. Within moments of Petro threatening to wage a tit-for-tat trade war with the US, and accusing Trump of treating Latin Americans like an ‘inferior race’, the Colombian government was suddenly willing to accept the deportation flights after all. ‘The government of Colombia’, announced the White House on Sunday evening, ‘has agreed to all of President Trump’s terms, including the unrestricted acceptance of all illegal aliens from Colombia returned from the United States, including on US military aircraft, without limitation or delay’. Or, as Colombian foreign minister Luis Gilberto Murillo put it: ‘We have overcome the impasse with the US government.’

There was clearly a great deal of social-media theatrics to this diplomatic flare-up, and not just on Trump’s side. Petro was also using the affair for PR purposes, playing to anti-American and anti-Trump sentiment, domestically and internationally. In a series of excitable tweets on Sunday, he accused Trump’s US of trying to ‘carry out a coup’ with its ‘economic strength and… arrogance’. He suggested that even if the US kills him, ‘he will survive in my people’. He also called for American ‘blacks and Latinos’ to ‘join together’, presumably in opposition to the ‘white slaver’ president.

Petro’s indignation seemed more than a little performative. After all, while the use of military planes may have been new, following Trump’s executive orders on immigration last week, there is nothing unusual about US deportation flights into Colombia. Successive administrations have long been returning illegal migrants to South and Central America. Before Trump came along, Barack Obama was nicknamed the ‘deporter-in-chief’. Joe Biden’s administration carried out well over one million deportations between 2021 and 2024, mostly to Latin America. During that time, there has barely been a peep about this from the Colombian government or from Petro, who became president in 2022.

To a certain extent, Petro was objecting to the means of deportation – that is, the use of military rather than civilian aircraft. His concern had initially been piqued by a social-media post over the weekend from Brazil’s foreign ministry. It complained of the ‘degrading treatment’ of Brazilian migrants deported on military aircraft on Friday, following reports that they were handcuffed and refused water during the flight. Petro then tweeted on Sunday that migrants are not criminals and should be returned with dignity on civilian planes. Trump, meanwhile, has insisted that those being returned committed crimes in the US.

Still, the idea that Colombia would embark on a trade war with its largest export market over deportation flights is far-fetched. It seems as if Petro spied an opportunity over the weekend to strike a defiant pose against Trump, rather than seriously begin an economic conflict with the US.

As seemingly shallow as this diplomatic social-media spat was, as indicated by how swiftly it was resolved, it did reveal something about the Trump administration’s foreign-policy approach. In short, it showed that the White House’s posture towards other nations – including long-term strategic allies like Colombia – will be governed by what it sees as America’s national interest. That is, foreign policy will be used to serve clear domestic, national ends – in this case, to aid Trump’s clampdown on illegal or unauthorised immigration. It certainly suggests that if a powerful nation is determined to deport unauthorised migrants, there is little to stop it doing so.

Furthermore, it suggests that Trump is not simply obsessed with tariffs in and of themselves, as some of the more myopic anti-Trump coverage suggests. Rather, he is also willing to use tariffs and other economic punishments as foreign-policy levers – as all-purpose tools to realise his administration’s international objectives. In the shape of tariffs, Trump has blunt, non-military weapons to force other nations to bend to Washington’s will.

On Sunday evening, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt released a statement declaring that, ‘Today’s events make clear to the world that America is respected again’. That is up for debate. While American might has long been a fact of geopolitical life, few nations will be cock-a-hoop about America’s renewed willingness to throw its weight around and bring smaller, poorer nations to heel. Seeing British conservatives cheer on Trump’s more imperious moves of late is strange given their supposed support for Britain’s sovereign interests, which will on occasion conflict with The Donald’s plans.

What is clear is that, under Trump, the US is willing to dispense with the usual diplomatic or legalistic niceties in pursuit of its politics – and to deliver on the promises made to voters. A first taste of ‘America First’ in action.

Tim Black is a spiked columnist.