Collaborator or otherwise: Trump’s Columbia Face is a warning to all leaders

Colombia is reeling from the tariff war, but the tactic poses a test for the new Trump administration.

Will America be a public utility if future sanctions lead to higher prices for US consumers? Will they be willing to endure some of the financial pain involved in advancing Trump’s immigration priorities?

The USDA imports about 27% of the US from Colombia, as well as other commodities such as bananas, crude oil, avocados, and flowers. Coffee imports alone are worth around $2bn (£1.6bn).

Colombian President Gustavo Petro initially responded by saying that his country would receive citizens “on civilian planes, on civilian planes without being treated like criminals.”

It’s no secret that Petro does not like Donald Trump – he has been very critical of his policies on immigration and the environment in the past.

In a long response on X, he said that Trump “wiped out the human species because of his greed” and accused the US president of considering the “inferior race” of Colombians.

Petro went on to describe himself as “stubborn” and said that he was continuing to try to make Trump’s “economic power and arrogance” his “economic power and arrogance.”

Most significantly, Petro said: “From today, Colombia is open to the whole world, with open arms.”

This is something that should worry a US president who wants to address migration. Incoming administration officials announced that the mission would require looking beyond the Mexican border.

Trump’s choice for deputy secretary of state, Christopher Landau, has long argued that he should be the “emperor of US foreign policy” to “work with other countries to stop these kinds of migratory flows.” Sunday’s spat can allow you to work harder once again.

Every year in the world, thousands of migrants from India to China, after landing in South America and passing through Colombia – Colombia point north of the Panama-Colombia border. It is a dangerous journey that is generally facilitated by criminal gangs.