The diplomatic crisis between the United States and Colombia that unfolded on Sunday, January 26 revealed tactics of intimidation and threats, somewhere between reality show and real concessions. The crisis came to a head late in the afternoon, when Donald Trump announced a decision to immediately impose 25% tariffs on imports from Colombia, after the South American country refused to accept two US military aircraft carrying Colombian nationals deported from the US.
But at around 10:10pm, the new US president suspended his threats in a statement that was retweeted by his Colombian counterpart, Gustavo Petro, who said that: “Colombia has accepted all his conditions.”
A few hours earlier, however, things looked very different on Trump’s Truth Social network: “I was just informed that two repatriation flights from the United States, with a large number of illegal criminals, were not allowed to land in Colombia. This order was given by Colombia’s socialist president Gustavo Petro, who is already very unpopular amongst his people,” Trump posted. He added that he had “directed my administration to immediately take the following urgent and decisive retaliatory measures: immediate tariffs of 25%, which could be raised to 50% within a week, plus a travel ban and the revocation of visas for Colombian government officials. “These measures are just the beginning,” he then threatened.
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