How Trump coerced Colombia to accept deportees by threatening US tariff war

The United States and Colombia pulled back down from a trade war on Sunday, after hours of heated exchanges between their leaders in public.

After Colombia refused to accept two US military aircraft with Colombian citizens deported from the US, Washington threatened tariffs and sanctions on Bogota. The US is Colombia’s largest trading partner.

US President Donald Trump and Colombian counterpart Gustavo Petro traded barbs online until late on Sunday, with Colombia eventually agreeing to accept deportees and the US claiming victory. Here is more about what happened — and what was at stake for Washington and Bogota.

What was Trump’s row with Colombia about?

Colombian President Petro refused to let two US military aircraft carrying deported Colombian migrants land, amid Trump’s intensifying crackdown on migration to the US.

He accused Trump of not treating the deported migrants with dignity or respect. Petro reposted a video on X showing deportees in an airport in Brazil, with their hands and feet restrained. “I cannot allow migrants to remain in a country that does not want them; but if that country sends them back, it must be with dignity and respect for them and for our country,” he wrote.

In 2022, there were an estimated 240,000 unauthorised Colombian immigrants in the US, according to a report by the US Department of Homeland Security.

Petro offered to send a presidential plane to facilitate the return of the migrants, which he argued was more dignified than how the US was sending them back.

Trump hit back, accusing Petro of jeopardising US security.

Threatening tariffs and sanctions, Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform on Sunday: “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!”

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio also said on Sunday that he was authorising visa restrictions on those Colombian officials and their families “who were responsible for the interference of US repatriation flight operations”.

What was Trump’s tariff threat?

As the back-and-forth continued, Trump upped his threats, ordering 25 percent tariffs on all Colombian goods coming into the US. These tariffs, he warned, would then be raised to 50 percent in the following week.

In addition, Trump said he would impose “visa sanctions” and a “travel ban and immediate visa revocations” on government officials and their family members and supporters, while tightening border inspections of all Colombian nationals and cargo.

What was Colombia’s reaction?

In retaliation to Trump’s threats, Petro threatened to also impose 25 percent tariffs on US goods.

The Colombian president posted a series of defiant messages on X on Sunday, responding to Trump’s threats.

“Your blockade does not scare me, because Colombia, besides being the country of beauty, is the heart of the world,” he wrote in one of them.

“The US cannot treat Colombian migrants as criminals,” Petro wrote on X, also pointing out that there are “15,660 Americans irregularly settled in Colombia”.

The row was resolved late on Sunday. Colombian Foreign Minister Luis Gilberto Murillo told a news conference that officials had “overcome the impasse” and would accept citizens deported from the US. He added: “The government of Colombia … has the presidential plane ready to facilitate the return of Colombians who were going to arrive in the country this morning on deportation flights.”

Colombia’s statement additionally said that Murillo and Colombia’s ambassador to the US would, in the upcoming days, travel to Washington to continue diplomatic dialogue and ease tensions.

The White House echoed this in a statement, saying Colombia had agreed to all of Trump’s terms, including “unrestricted acceptance of all illegal aliens from Colombia returned from the United States, including on US military aircraft, without limitation or delay”.

What does the US import from Colombia?

Both sides would have been hurt had the tariff war gone ahead.

Between January and November 2024, the US imported goods worth $16bn from Colombia, according to US Census data.

The US receives its largest supply of cut flowers from Colombia, importing nearly two-thirds, or 66 percent of its cut flowers from the country, according to 2022 data from the Observatory of Economic Complexity (OEC). Valentine’s Day, coming up on February 14, would have pinched Americans more had the tariffs kicked in.

The US also sources just over 20 percent of its imported coffee from Colombia — only marginally behind Brazil, the largest supplier of coffee to the US.

The US also imports crude petroleum, gold, aluminium structures, bananas, and coffee and tea extracts from Colombia — but in much smaller quantities.

Colombia is among the rare group of countries that have a trade deficit with Washington. In other words, the US exports more to Colombia than it imports from the South American nation.

How would a trade war with the US impact Colombia?

While a trade war would have made specific goods — like flowers and coffee — costlier for US consumers, it would have had larger implications for Colombia’s economy, impacting both its exports and imports.

“These measures would have significant political and economic implications,” Victor Munoz, a visiting fellow at Germany-based think tank, European Council on Foreign Relations, told Al Jazeera.

“For Colombia, such actions could lead to the loss of thousands of jobs, particularly in sectors like oil and gas, gold, coffee, and flowers,” he explained.

The US is the largest trading partner with Colombia in terms of both imports and exports, according to OEC data from 2022. A quarter of Colombia’s exports go to the US, and the imports from the US comprise 26.4 percent of Colombia’s total imports.

“Colombia has been working for decades to expand its commercial partnerships and diversify its international relations. However, expecting Colombia to immediately replace the export destinations for its products and services or the scale of US investments is unrealistic in the short term,” Munoz said.

Between January and November 2024, Colombia imported goods worth $17bn from the US, according to US Census data.

The US sent about $2.5bn worth of petroleum products to Colombia in 2023, making petroleum products the US’s most valuable export to Colombia. The next most valuable export was corn, at $1.2bn in 2023, and chemicals, at $1bn in the same year.

Colombia also imports soybean meal and planes, among other things, from the US.

“Tariffs could also trigger a devaluation of the Colombian peso, increasing economic risks and exerting inflationary pressure due to the rising costs of imported goods and raw materials,” Munoz said.

“Such measures would undoubtedly create substantial economic and social impacts in the affected countries like Colombia.”

What are deportation flights and are they new?

A deportation flight is a flight sending unauthorised immigrants to their country of origin. However, this is the first time US military aircraft are being used to deport immigrants, according to an unnamed US official, Agence France-Presse reported.

Deportation is not new, and the US began deporting immigrants starting as early as 1892, when 2,801 immigrants were removed, according to the Department of Homeland Security. However, the number skyrocketed starting in the 1990s.

When Democratic US President Joe Biden took office in 2021, he had promised to pause deportations, but he expanded them, recently deporting the highest number of immigrants in nearly a decade – more than 271,000 over the last fiscal year.

Between 2021 and 2024, the US expelled 28,635 Colombian citizens, according to the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) website. Nearly half of these were in the fiscal year of 2024.

But Trump contested the 2024 election on accusations that the Biden administration allowed “hordes” of undocumented immigrants to enter the country, also making unsubstantiated claims suggesting that countries were sending violent criminals to the US.

He promised that he would carry out the “largest deportation operation in history”.

Meanwhile, Trump has also made clear that he intends to use tariffs as a weapon. He has threatened stringent tariffs targeting countries including China, Mexico and Canada.

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