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.
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!”
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