BOGATA — President Donald Trump says he will impose new tariffs on Colombia and slash all U.S. assistance to the South American nation after dramatically escalating tensions with one of Washington’s historically closest security partners in Latin America.
Speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One on Sunday evening, Trump said he would announce the specific tariff rate the next day, calling Colombia “a drug manufacturing machine,” but he made no announcement Monday.
“Colombia is out of control. They now have the worst president they’ve ever had,” he said in reference to Colombia’s leftist president Gustavo Petro, with whom he had been sparring on social media during the weekend. “He’s a lunatic with many mental problems.”
On Sunday, Trump said Petro was “strongly encouraging the massive production of drugs” across fields in Colombia, “despite large-scale payments and subsidies from the USA.” He announced the end to all aid funding to the South American nation and issued a warning: “Better close up these killing fields immediately, or the United States will close them up for him, and it won’t be done nicely.”
Trump described Petro as “an illegal drug leader” who “has “a fresh mouth toward America,” after the Colombian president accused the U.S. of “murder” for the killing of a Colombian national during one of the strikes the U.S. military is conducting in the Caribbean, targeting suspected narcotraffickers.
Following Trump’s aid cut announcement, Petro fought back, writing that the U.S. president was “ignorant about Colombia,” in a publication on social media. He recalled the Colombian ambassador to Bogotá for consultations, the country’s foreign affairs ministry announced Monday.
On Monday afternoon, Petro remained defiant. In a long, meandering interview that included references to Latin American liberator Simón Bolívar, the Romans, Sigmung Freud and the Soviets — whom he called “heroes of humanity” — he told the Univision network he would not make concessions to the U.S.
“Trump said, ‘Colombia is out of control,- of course it is out of his control,” he told Daniel Coronell, a Colombian journalist who is the president of Noticias Univision. “In a democracy, a government is under the control of the people, not Trump. He is not a king. In Colombia, we don’t accept kings.”
The Colombian president said his criticism of the United States grew “as more bombs fell and more children were killed in Gaza, as more and more Latin Americans were chained and handcuffed on airplanes and expelled like unwanted dogs in the United States, and as they began to threaten us to the point that the same missiles that fall in Gaza fall into the Caribbean Sea.
“In the face of this, a president remains silent and kneels, or a president speaks for the dignity of humanity, not just of his people,” he said.
Last month, the U.S. State Department stripped Petro of his U.S. visa for his “reckless and incendiary actions” during a pro-Palestinian protest in New York City, the agency said. The Colombian president had called on U.S. troops to disobey Trump’s orders during the rally.
In the Univision interview, Petro said his comments in New York were taken out of context. He also said it was “not true that Colombia was flooding the world with cocaine.” He also repeatedly avoided responding to questioning regarding the economic consequences of the U.S. tariffs for Colombians, or his handling of the diplomatic crisis.
“I’ll see how I maneuver,” he said.
The State Department did not respond to questions about diplomatic talks with Colombia at this point. Petro said in the interview he had a scheduled meeting for Monday evening with John T. McNamara, the chargé d’affaires of the U.S. Embassy in Colombia.
Raising tariffs would significantly affect Colombia’s economy. Colombia already faces a 10% tariff imposed in April 2025 as part of Trump’s global tariff package on imports.
U.S. goods and services trade with Colombia totaled an estimated $53.3 billion in 2024, according to the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative. A quarter of Colombia’s exports go to the U.S. Its biggest export is crude oil, but the country is also a large exporter of cut flowers and coffee.
Foreign policy experts note that tariffs tend to harm the private sector, which in Colombia has historically taken a pro-American stance.
In Colombia, while Petro’s supporters have criticized Trump’s comments about their country’s president, many politicians are questioning his handling of a relationship that is key to the country’s economy.
“Gustavo Petro achieved his goal. His irresponsible handling of international relations and his staunch defense of [Venezuela strongman Nicolas] Maduro led Colombia to a serious diplomatic crisis with our main trading partner,” said Andrés Forero, a Colombian lawmaker.
Trump’s tariffs and aid cut announcements mark a stunning reversal in a bilateral relationship that has been anchored by counternarcotics cooperation for more than two decades.
Last month, the Trump administration said Colombia had “failed demonstrably” for the first time in nearly 30 years to meet its international counternarcotics obligations. Although that could trigger sanctions, the U.S. government issued waivers, signaling the importance of Colombian cooperation for U.S. counternarcotics efforts.
Colombia “remains a committed U.S. partner, but also the source of 97 percent of cocaine that enters the United States”, the State Department’s Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs wrote in a 2023 report.
The State Department did not say whether the programs handled by the bureau will also be affected by Trump’s decision to cut foreign assistance to Colombia.
In a statement, Democratic Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, a ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said that despite concerns about Petro’s efforts to curb cocaine production, President Trump’s threats to end assistance to Colombia were “shortsighted and self-defeating.”
“The overwhelming majority of our assistance to Colombia goes to combat drug traffickers and transnational criminals, including by strengthening extraditions and intelligence sharing, supporting Colombia’s criminal justice system and ensuring Colombian partners have the training and equipment necessary to effectively counter these actors,” she said. “Cutting this law enforcement aid would only weaken America’s ability to secure our borders from deadly drugs and crime”.
While they note that Petro’s incendiary statements in New York have been counterproductive, foreign experts say cutting aid to Colombia runs counter to U.S. interests.
“We are doing complicated foreign policy by tweet. I just see this as really poking our own eye,” said Luis G. Moreno, a retired U.S. ambassador who was one of the primary planners of “Plan Colombia,” the 15-year, $10 billion U.S. security aid package that began in 2000 to combat drug trafficking, the guerrillas and paramilitary groups in the South American nation.
“Colombia has been the United States’ best ally, not only for drugs,” said Moreno. “Colombia is the oldest democracy in Latin America. They’ve been allied with us going back to the Korean War. No one has sacrificed more in terms of people who’ve given their lives — police, army, judges — so this is a rather rash decision.”
Petro is expected to leave office in May 2026, since the country’s constitution bars presidents from seeking immediate re-election, though he is actively campaigning for the political alliance Pacto Histórico to remain in power.
“What Trump is doing,” Moreno said, “is sending Petro a lifeline.”
By NORA GAMEZ TORRES/El Nuevo Herald
Nora Gámez Torres is the Cuba/U.S.-Latin American policy reporter for el Nuevo Herald and the Miami Herald. She studied journalism and media and communications in Havana and London. She holds a Ph.D. in sociology from City, University of London. Her work has won awards by the Florida Society of News Editors and the Society for Professional Journalists.
