Trade War Between Colombia & U.S. Over Migrant Deportations Averted As Trump’s Threats Yield Results

After Colombian President Gustavo Petro refused to accept a U.S. military aircraft transporting migrants on Sunday, U.S. President Donald Trump said he would slap an emergency 25% tariff on all Colombian imports to the U.S. Petro barred two aircraft carrying deported migrants from Colombian soil. 

Trump had ordered visa restrictions and 25% tariffs on all Colombian incoming goods, which would be raised to 50% in one week. The president also threatened a travel ban on Colombian government officials “and all allies and supporters.” The two leaders took to social media platforms in a back-and-forth effort to defend their views on migration. 

The U.S. president took to Truth Social on Sunday, saying that the Colombian president’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 and decisive retaliatory measures.”

Petro wrote in a post on X that Colombia has never refused migrants but said he will not receive deportees “handcuffed and on military craft.”

Trump’s tariffs yielded results in a powerful display of his presidential emergency authorities. Petro first said on X that Colombia would retaliate, and he would order his trade minister to raise tariffs on goods from the U.S. by 25 percent. Later, the White House released a statement Colombia had agreed to accept migrants “without limitation or delay.”

Though the White House’s statement noted this, the Colombian Government did not specify whether it would accept military flights.

“The Government of Colombia, under the direction of President Gustavo Petro, has made the presidential aircraft available to facilitate the dignified return of fellow nationals who were to arrive in the country this morning on deportation flights. This measure responds to the Government’s commitment to guarantee dignified conditions. Under no circumstances have Colombians, as patriots and rights-holders, been or will be banished from Colombian territory,” the president’s office wrote.

The Trump administration hailed their agreement as a victory and made it “clear to the world that America is respected again,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt wrote. Sunday’s events also served to show countries what they could face if they intervened in the Trump administration’s crackdown on illegal immigration.

This marks a dramatic shift in the relationship between the two countries as they have a free trade agreement that removes duties on the majority of goods. World Bank data also reports that more than a quarter of Colombia’s exports went to the U.S. as of 2022.