Trump Deploys Tariff Hammer on Colombia (Updated)
More immigration politics.

The AP reports: US, Colombia clash over deportations and raise tariffs in show of Trump’s pledge to limit migration.
Earlier Sunday, Petro said his government would not accept flights carrying migrants deported from the U.S. until the Trump administration creates a protocol that treats them with “dignity.” Petro made the announcement in two X posts, one of which included a news video of migrants reportedly deported to Brazil walking on a tarmac with restraints on their hands and feet.
“A migrant is not a criminal and must be treated with the dignity that a human being deserves,” Petro said. “That is why I returned the U.S. military planes that were carrying Colombian migrants… In civilian planes, without being treated like criminals, we will receive our fellow citizens.”
After Trump’s announcement, Petro said in a post on X that he had ordered the “foreign trade minister to raise import tariffs from the U.S. by 25%.”
Trump has further threatened to take the tariffs to 50% in a week if Pedro did not relent.
Additionally,
In announcing what he called “urgent and decisive retaliatory measures,” Trump explained that he ordered the tariffs and “A Travel Ban and immediate Visa Revocations” on Colombian government officials, allies and supporters.
It seems worth underscoring that Colombia has been one of the US’s closet allies in the hemisphere for decades. It is true that the current president, Gustavo Petro, comes from the left and has not been as friendly to the US as his predecessors, he also has just over a year left in office and if one were to bet, one would suspect that the next Colombian president would be more cooperative. Petro in the only leftist to ever win the Colombian presidency.*
But, of course, if the Trump administration would like to increase the chances that Colombia would find cause to cozy up more with China between now and then.
It will come as a shock to learn that a trade conflict with Colombia might actually be more damaging to US interests than Colombian (and may violate the US-Colombia FTA).
Trump’s actions would seem to undercut his goal to reduce his country’s trade deficit. Unlike Mexico or China, Colombia is one of the few countries with a trade deficit with the U.S., of around $1.4 billion, according to U.S. trade data.
Colombia is the U.S.’s second biggest buyer of corn and corn feed, according to the U.S. grains council, helping boost U.S. commodity exports from farm belt states like Iowa, Indiana and Nebraska to more than $733 million last year.
The U.S. export boom has been driven by a two-decade-old free trade agreement between the two countries, which have for long been close partners in the war on drugs. It is unclear if Trump’s tariffs are allowed under the agreement, which contains a dispute mechanism to resolve trade fights.
But, apropos of my post yesterday, this is Trump trying to govern as a dictator. He wants to do what he wants to do and will use whatever powers he thinks he has to retaliate if you won’t let him. He certainly does not care about such minor details as to what the trade agreement with Colombia allows nor does he really care who might be harmed by tariffs. He thinks that tariffs are an amazing tool that solve all problems. He literally wants to dictate outcomes.
One might ask why Petro decided to draw this line. I have no special insight save that I am sure that Petro is no fan of Trump. Further, Colombia is a large and significant enough country that it likely is rankled by the US just sending military planes without asking permission in the first place. Countries take their sovereignty seriously and often rebel at being treated like an inferior by the United States,
And because we are in a deeply unserious phase of US politics, a member of the House has gotten involved. The Hill reports: Moreno says he will introduce legislation to sanction Colombia.
Sen. Bernie Moreno (R-Ohio) said Sunday he will introduce legislation to sanction Colombia this week after the country’s president reportedly denied entry to two planes carrying deported migrants from the U.S.
“This week I will introduce legislation to impose new sanctions on Colombia for refusing @realDonaldTrump’s migrant repatriation flights,” Moreno wrote on the social platform X.
All of this is almost certainly going to cause the Petro administration to dig in their heels.
Also: it would be nice if all of this wasn’t all being fought out over social media, like some kind of flame war between fans of two different football teams.
And BTW, it isn’t just Colombia, as Reuters reported: Mexico refuses US military flight deporting migrants, sources say.
Mexico has refused a request from President Donald Trump‘s administration to allow a U.S. military aircraft deporting migrants to land in the country, a U.S. official and a Mexican official told Reuters.
U.S. military aircraft carried out two similar flights, each with about 80 migrants, to Guatemala on Friday. The government was not able to move ahead with a plan to have a C-17 transport aircraft land in Mexico, however, after the country denied permission.
See, also, Reuters: Colombia’s Petro will not allow US planes to return migrants.
“The U.S. cannot treat Colombian migrants as criminals,” Petro wrote in the post, adding that the government in Washington should develop a protocol that “treats migrants with dignity.”
Petro’s comments add to the growing chorus of discontent in Latin America over planned mass deportations by U.S. President Donald Trump.
Brazil’s foreign ministry said late on Saturday that it would demand explanations from the U.S. government over the “degrading treatment” of Brazilians on a deportation flight, while Mexico on Fridayalso refused such a flight to land in the country.
Speaking of (admittedly minor) things that rankle, former students and many friends will know how much the misspelling of “Colombia” bugs me (indeed, it rankles all Colombians and Colombianists!). It also seems very Trumpy.
Update: Via The Hill: Colombia to send presidential plane to Honduras to pick up migrants from US flights.
Colombian President Gustavo Petro has arranged for the presidential plane to facilitate the “dignified return of Colombian nationals who were to arrive in the country today in the morning hours, coming in from deportation flights,” read a statement released on Sunday.
“This measure is in response to the government’s commitment to guarantee dignified conditions. In no way have Colombians, as patriots and subjects of rights, been or will be banished from Colombian territory,” the statement continued.
Earlier Sunday, President Trump slapped Colombia with 25 percent tariffson all goods coming into the U.S., and he issued a travel ban and immediate visa revocations on “Government Officials, and all Allies and Supporters,” among other measures, after the South American country rejected two planes carrying migrants.
Petro hit Trump back by ordering an increase of import tariffs on goods from the United States by 25 percent.
So, you know, a productive interchange between allies.
*Exactly what I mean by that would require more time than I have at the moment, and likely no one would care about the details, anyway. It is fair to say that since 1958 to 2022, Phttps://x.com/JuanCMerlano/status/1883599172445802563etro is the first president who came from a party properly classified as on the left. Petro was at one point a member of the M-19 guerrilla organization.
Fun trivia: I interviewed Petro ~30 years ago when he was a member of Congress as part of my dissertation research.
Foreign leaders do not give two shits about Trump. They don’t have to put up with his crap, and they don’t have to satisfy MAGA morons.
The Greenland rhetoric is absolutely going to have the reverse effect that he thinks it will – it doesn’t make him look strong, it makes him look stupid and irrational, not like the kind of person you want to actually work with. Colombia sees that he isn’t someone who cares about agreements, so why would they even want to work with him to come to one?
Jamelle Bouie has referred to this as part of Trumps war on breakfast.
Silencing theCDC so it’s harder to control the bird flu outbreak — eggs.
Scaring away the farm workers so they won’t harvest citrus — orange juice
This — coffee
I expect that the Canada thing will hit the maple syrup prices.
The attitude of foreign leaders is – in general – that the first Trump election was a fluke. Stuff happens – sometimes extremely weird/stupid stuff.
But this time around it’s not a fluke or an accident – American voters jumped into this with eyes wide open. As ptfe above says, it’s not foreign leaders’ problem to worry about the hurt fee-fees of MAGA voters.
European leaders are watching Trump’s attacks on Denmark very closely. And how they decide to handle it will result in a decline in America’s status that we might not recover for many years. Not that most Americans care about what a bunch of furriners think about anything but they should. Trump is going to wipe out much of America’s soft power with his never-ending tantrums.
Some way too online Trump supporters initially tried to portray this as Colombia boarding to the power and authority of Trump. Talk about missing the point. A good reminder about trying to declare victory in real time.
Genuinely curious to see which, if either side blinks first. In other news, Colombia’s decision might embolden Honduras to also push back on Trump. And that would have issues on both or China deterrent and Panama Canal aspirations:
https://responsiblestatecraft.org/us-military-honduras/
@Gustopher:
Eggs, OJ, Coffee…
Have we learned NOTHING from Eddie Murphy in Trading Places??? This shit will lead to a market collapse!
By the way, Colombia was spelled “Columbia” in the original message from the White House.
@CSK: LOL. Of course it was.
Adding to the war on breakfast, my bananas have stickers from Honduras.
@CSK: I noted it above. It is quite the cherry on the stupidity sundae.
This is both weird and dumb bad. It’s dumb and bad for reasons explained in the post.
It’s weird because we’ve been deporting people to Colombia for a long time. I looked up the ICE statistics, and in FY 2024, we deported just over 14k Colombians. From skimming the year-end report, it looks like most were deported via aircraft, primarily ICE-contracted charter flights.
So, Colombia hasn’t shown any apparent reluctance to accept removals and expulsions from the US generally or by aircraft specifically. What’s changed?
Reports are conflicting, but I’ve read the two flights were pre-coordinated and approved, and then Colombia canceled the diplomatic clearance after they took off, hence the diversion to Honduras. I worked a lot with military aircraft flight planning and what pilots called “dip clearance” (diplomatic clearance) is required for any military aircraft passing through the airspace of another country. Unless the dip clearance is granted, airplanes generally don’t take off, or they fly a route that avoids that country (not possible for destination countries, obviously) – the exceptions are for emergencies and contingencies, where dip clearance can be coordinated and approved in flight.
Note that Mexico has not granted dip clearance for any US military deportation flights, no planes have taken off in anticipation of landing in Mexico, and Trump hasn’t gone off the deep end with them (yet). Why Colombia?
Colombia giving initial dip clearance and then revoking it makes the most sense and could be chalked up to any number of normal things. It seems unlikely that Colombia would do that intentionally to poke the bear, even though it’s certainly possible. Trump diving off the top ropes for what could be a simple miscommunication or coordination issue is excessive, even for him.
Furthermore, the whole show of using military aircraft for transport is completely unnecessary and a waste—ICE coordinates thousands of charter flights, which are almost certainly going to be much cheaper than a military aircraft. Trump using military aircraft is entirely about optics IMO.
So what happens now? Does Colombia start denying all expulsions, even from commercial and charter aircraft? Does this escalate more than it has?
Let’s hope not.
Edited to add: I’m just seeing your updated post on the topic. Objection to the use of military flights and treatment concerns do seem like the most likely objections. Still not clear why the planes took off in the first place.
@Andy:
I have been thinking a bit about this as well and agree that it is wasteful, a deviation from normal practice, and almost certainly about optics.
By the Trump Administration’s logic, Colombia is now perfectly within its rights to recover Panama, so long as the USA keeps the Canal Zone. That would be entertaining. And destabilizing.
Besides the old Panama Papers, I’d love to see a large scale leak from the Grand Caymans (mostly Americans), Bermuda (Americans – worst being the UHaul family), ABC Islands (Aruba and Curacao – South Americans). PLUS a release from the other private banks in Panama (only a couple were leaked – all over the globe).
And release the Jeffrey Epstein records (maybe something, maybe not, don’t know).
@CSK:
As a Colombian, this, among many other things throughout this exchange annoyed me and I am sure, that’s a sentiment shared by most of us.
@Not the IT Dept.: I read a few conservative sites. In comments, and in letters to my local paper, I’ve fairly regularly seen comments that Trump restored foreign respect for America, then Biden destroyed that respect. Any actual poll result I’ve seen said exactly the opposite, very bigly. But they believe what they believe.
@Steven L. Taylor:
Indeed you did. I don’t know why I didn’t notice your comment on my first reading.