Colombia backs down on blocking deportation flights after Trump response
Daily News Article — Posted on January 28, 2025
At 2:41 a.m. on Jan. 26, Colombian President Petro, a former Marxist guerrilla fighter and the first left-wing president in recent history, had posted on X:
The US cannot treat Colombian migrants as criminals.
I deny the entry of American planes with Colombian migrants into our territory.
The US must establish a protocol for the dignified treatment of migrants before we receive them.
[NOTE: The illegal migrants currently being returned to their countries by ICE are actually criminals.]
The BBC reported on Monday:
President Petro appeared to object to the return of deportees on military rather than civilian flights – and to the way the migrants may be treated on those military flights.
In his posts on X, Petro referenced a news video showing migrants deported from the US to Brazil, who had been handcuffed and had their feet restrained during the deportation flight.
He said that he would “never allow Colombians to be returned handcuffed on flights.”
At 12:28 PM, President Trump posted on TruthSocial:
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. 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!
At 2:36 p.m., Secretary of State Marco Rubio posted on X:
President Trump has made it clear that under his administration, America will no longer be lied to nor taken advantage of. It is the responsibility of each nation to take back their citizens who are illegally present in the United States in a serious and expeditious manner.
Colombian President Petro had authorized flights and provided all needed authorizations and then canceled his authorization when the planes were in the air. As demonstrated by today’s actions, we are unwavering in our commitment to end illegal immigration and bolster America’s border security.
At 5:38 the State Department posted on X:
The State Department will continue to enforce and prioritize an America First agenda. Following President Petro’s refusal to accept two repatriation flights he previously authorized,
@SecRubio immediately ordered a suspension of visa issuance at the U.S. Embassy Bogota consular section.
@SecRubio is now authorizing travel sanctions on individuals and their families, who were responsible for the interference of U.S. repatriation flight operations. Measures will continue until Colombia meets its obligations to accept the return of its own citizens. America will not back down when it comes to defending its national security interests.
At 5:59 p.m. the State Department X page posted:
America will not back down when it comes to defending our national security interests.
included was a link to a press release: “Secretary Rubio Authorizes Visa Restrictions on Colombian Government Officials and their Immediate Family Members”
At 9:20 p.m., White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt posted on X:
The Government of Colombia has agreed to all of President Trump’s terms:
From the BBC:
“Your blockade does not scare me, because Colombia, besides being the country of beauty, is the heart of the world,” he wrote.
Meanwhile, members of Petro’s administration worked behind the scenes to defuse the row.
In a late-night news conference, Foreign Minister Luis Gilberto Murillo announced that the two countries had “overcome the impasse” and that Colombia would accept returned citizens.
While Murillo did not directly refer to the White House statement, according to which Colombia had agreed to allow US military flights to take the deportees back, he did not deny it either.
The foreign minister reiterated Colombia’s offer to send its presidential plane to the US to transport the deportees.
While the Colombian concession seems to have averted the looming trade war, the US has said that visa restrictions on Colombian government officials would stay in place until the first planeload of deportees landed in Colombia.
Colombians arriving at US airports will also undergo greater scrutiny under the measures imposed on Sunday, the Trump administration said.
Colombia’s foreign minister said he would travel to Washington “in the coming days” for high-level meetings with administration officials.
The row marks a low point in relations between the two countries, which historically have been allies and co-operated closely in the fight against drug trafficking, with the US providing billions of dollars in military aid and training to Colombia’s security forces.
From posts at TruthSocial, X and BBC News on Jan. 26 and 27, 2025.
Questions
1. Describe what happened between the U.S. and Colombia on Sunday.
2. What was President Gustavo Petro's main objection to the illegal migrant criminals being sent back to Colombia?
3. How would you describe President Trump's response?
4. What did US Secretary of State Marco Rubio note about the flights to Colombia?
5. The State Department posted on X: "America will not back down when it comes to defending our national security interests." Is this the right policy? Explain your answer.
6. Re-read the statement from White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt. What tone is President Trump and his administration setting for the next four years?
7. President Petro said on X: "The US cannot treat Colombian migrants as criminals."
However, several readers noted:
-"They are criminals."
-"In addition to entering the US illegally, the Colombians being deported have criminal records."
-"I don’t understand he’s worried that they’re being treated like criminals. They are criminals."
President Petro wants a “dignified” return – not on a military plane and not handcuffs/shackles.
The deportees in the videos are all military age men on these flights. Our own troops - men and women - travel on these transport planes.
What do you think?
8. Read Colombian President Petro's X post found under "Background" below. Why do you think he wrote this? Was it effective? Explain your answer.
Background
At 3:15 p.m. on Jan. 26, President Petro posted on X (translated by googletranslate):
Trump, I don't really like traveling to the US, it's a bit boring, but I confess that there are some meritorious things, I like going to the black neighborhoods of Washington, there I saw an entire fight in the US capital between blacks and Latinos with barricades, which seemed like nonsense to me, because they should unite.
I confess that I like Walt Whitman and Paul Simon and Noam Chomsky [who describes himself as an anarcho-syndicalist and libertarian socialist with radical Marxist leanings] and Miller.
I confess that Sacco and Vanzetti [avowed anarchists who advocated the violent overthrow of capitalism], who have my blood, in the history of the US, are memorable and I follow them. They were murdered by labor leaders with the electric chair, the fascists who are within the US as well as within my country
I don't like your oil, Trump, you are going to end the human species because of greed. Maybe one day, over a drink of whiskey that I accept, despite my gastritis, we can talk frankly about this, but it's difficult because you consider me an inferior race and I am not, nor is any Colombian.
So if you know someone who is stubborn, that's me, period. You can try to carry out a coup with your economic strength and your arrogance, like they did with Allende. But I die in my law, I resisted torture and I resist you. I don't want slavers next to Colombia, we already had many and we freed ourselves. What I want next to Colombia are lovers of freedom. If you can't accompany me, I'll go elsewhere. Colombia is the heart of the world and you didn't understand it, this is the land of the yellow butterflies, of the beauty of Remedios, but also of the colonels Aureliano Buendía, of whom I am one, perhaps the last
You will kill me, but I will survive in my town, which is before yours, in the Americas. We are peoples of the winds, the mountains, the Caribbean Sea and of freedom
You don't like our freedom, okay. I don't shake hands with white slavers. I shake the hands of the white libertarian heirs of Lincoln and of the black and white peasant boys of the USA, before whose graves I cried and prayed on a battlefield, which I reached, after walking the mountains of Italian Tuscany and after being saved from Covid.
They are the USA and before them I kneel, before no one else.
Overthrow me, President, and the Americas and humanity will respond.
Colombia now stops looking north, looks at the world, our blood comes from the blood of the Caliphate of Córdoba, the civilization at that time, of the Roman Latins of the Mediterranean, the civilization of that time, who founded the republic, democracy in Athens; our blood has the black resisters turned into slaves by you. In Colombia is the first free territory of America, before Washington, of all America, there I take shelter in its African songs.
My land is made of goldsmiths from the time of the Egyptian pharaohs, and of the first artists of the world in Chiribiquete.
You will never dominate us. The warrior who rode our lands, shouting freedom, and who is called Bolivar, opposes us.
Our people are somewhat fearful, somewhat timid, they are naive and kind, loving, but they will know how to win the Panama Canal, which you took from us with violence. Two hundred heroes from all of Latin America lie in Bocas del Toro, now Panama, formerly Colombia, which you murdered.
I raise a flag and as Gaitán said, even if it remains alone, it will continue to be raised with the Latin American dignity that is the dignity of America, which your great-grandfather did not know, and mine did, Mr. President, an immigrant in the USA.
Your blockade does not scare me; because Colombia, in addition to being the country of beauty, is the heart of the world. I know that you love beauty as I do, do not disrespect it and you will offer it your sweetness.
FROM TODAY ON, COLOMBIA OPENS TO THE ENTIRE WORLD, WITH OPEN ARMS, WE ARE BUILDERS OF FREEDOM, LIFE AND HUMANITY.
I am informed that you put a 50% tariff on the fruits of our human labor to enter the US, I do the same.
Let our people plant corn that was discovered in Colombia and feed the world.