Trade war with Colombia over Trump’s use of US military to transport deportees

I’m embarrassed to say I know little about Colombian politics, despite the fact that one of my sisters in law’s family is from that country. I will apparently be learning quite a bit more about the subject very shortly:

Colombia refused to accept U.S. military planes deporting immigrants, setting off a furious reaction from President Trump, who on Sunday announced a barrage of tariffs and sanctions targeting the country, which has long been a top U.S. ally in Latin America.

The United States will immediately impose a 25 percent tariff on all Colombian imports, and will raise them to 50 percent in one week, Mr. Trump said on social media.

The Trump administration will also “fully impose” banking and financial sanctions against Colombia, and will apply a travel ban and revoke visas of Colombian government officials, the president said.

Colombia’s leftist president, Gustavo Petro, also hit back at Mr. Trump. In one social media post, he announced retaliatory tariffs of 25 percent on U.S. imports to Colombia and in another, longer post he said those tariffs would hit 50 percent.

Directly addressing Mr. Trump, Mr. Petro also questioned whether the American president was trying to topple him.

“You don’t like our freedom, fine,” Mr. Petro said. “I do not shake hands with white enslavers.”

The feud reflects how Mr. Trump is making an example out of Colombia as countries around the world grapple with how to prepare for the mass deportations of unauthorized immigrants that he has promised.

“This looks like a pretty bold and daring escalation on both sides,” said Will Freeman, a fellow for Latin America studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, citing Colombia’s economic reliance on the United States, which is still the South American country’s largest trading partner even as China has been making inroads.

“But equally, for Trump to threaten Colombia this way is pretty bold itself,” Mr. Freeman added. “That’s because Colombia remains historically the longest standing, the deepest, strategic ally in the region.”

Mr. Trump signed an executive order last week authorizing the U.S. military to assist in securing the border, and the Department of Defense said it would use military aircraft to deport people held in U.S. custody along the southern border.

Mr. Petro said earlier Sunday in a series of social media posts that Colombia would not accept military deportation flights from the United States until the Trump administration provided a process to treat Colombian migrants with “dignity and respect.”

Mr. Petro also said Colombia had already turned away military planes carrying Colombian deportees. While other countries in Latin America have raised concerns about Mr. Trump’s sweeping deportation plans, Colombia appears to be among the first to explicitly refuse to cooperate.

Here is President Petro’s longer tweet translated into English:

Trump, I don’t really like travelling to the US, it’s a bit boring, but I confess that there are some commendable things. I like going to the black neighbourhoods of Washington, where I saw an entire fight in the US capital between blacks and Latinos with barricades, which seemed like nonsense to me, because they should join together. I confess that I like Walt Whitman and Paul Simon and Noam Chomsky and Miller I confess that Sacco and Vanzetti, who have my blood, are memorable in the history of the USA and I follow them. They were murdered by labor leaders with the electric chair, the fascists who are within the USA as well as within my country I don’t like your oil, Trump, you’re going to wipe out the human species because of greed. Maybe one day, over a glass of whiskey, which I accept, despite my gastritis, we can talk frankly about this, but it’s difficult because you consider me an inferior race and I’m 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 will 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 that, this is the land of the yellow butterflies, of the beauty of Remedios, but also of the colonels Aureliano Buendía, of which I am one, perhaps the last. You will kill me, but I will survive in my people, 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 hands with the white libertarian heirs of Lincoln and the black and white farm boys of the USA, at 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 United States 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 Cordoba, the civilization of 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 resistance fighters turned into slaves by you. In Colombia is the first free territory of America, before Washington, of all America, there I take refuge in its African songs. My land is made up of goldsmiths who worked in the time of the Egyptian pharaohs and of the first artists in the world in Chiribiquete. You will never rule us. The warrior who rode our lands, shouting freedom, who is called Bolívar, 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, today’s 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, besides 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 give it your sweetness. FROM TODAY ON, COLOMBIA IS OPEN TO THE ENTIRE WORLD, WITH OPEN ARMS, WE ARE BUILDERS OF FREEDOM, LIFE AND HUMANITY. I am informed that you impose a 50% tariff on the fruits of our human labor to enter the United States, and I do the same. Let our people plant corn that was discovered in Colombia and feed the world

If you read Spanish I recommend going to the original, which has been cleaned up quite a bit by the Google translator, which is pretty poor overall, both in terms of accuracy and basic coherence. For example it renders pendejada as “nonsense,” when a more accurate translation would be roughly “fucking bullshit” (pendejo is a slang term of abuse, literally “pubic hair.”).

So things are going just great.