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The Trump administration said on Sunday night it was pausing punitive tariffs against Colombia after its leader agreed to grant entry to US military flights deporting migrants.
The announcement appeared to head off a trade war between the two allies after Colombia denied entry to two US military aircraft carrying deportees on Sunday. Washington responded by imposing 25 per cent tariffs on the country’s imports.
Bogotá said it would apply reciprocal tariffs of its own, as President Donald Trump and Colombian counterpart Gustavo Petro, a leftist former guerrilla member, traded barbs on social media.
On Sunday night the White House said Colombia had “agreed to all of President Trump’s terms”. But it said visa sanctions against Colombian government officials would remain in force “until the first planeload of Colombian deportees is successfully returned”.
“Today’s events make clear to the world that America is respected again,” said a White House statement.
“President Trump will continue to fiercely protect our nation’s sovereignty, and he expects all other nations of the world to fully co-operate in accepting the deportation of their citizens illegally present in the US.”
In a televised statement on Sunday night, Luis Gilberto Murillo, Colombia’s foreign minister, said: “We have overcome the impasse with the government of the United States.”
Murillo said he will travel to Washington in the coming days to “follow up on the agreements”, though did not mention the substance of the accord. He also said that the Colombian presidential plane would be made available to facilitate the arrival of the migrants denied entry on Sunday.
“We will continue to receive Colombian men and women who return as deportees, guaranteeing them dignified conditions as citizens with rights,” Murillo said.
The row erupted when Petro declared in a post on X that the deported migrants should be treated with “dignity and respect” and that Colombia had turned away US military aircraft carrying deportees.
Trump responded by accusing Petro in a post on Truth Social of jeopardising “the National Security and Public Safety of the United States”.
He announced emergency 25 per cent tariffs which would increase to 50 per cent in a week, alongside a travel ban and “immediate visa revocations” for Colombian government officials “and all allies and supporters”.
Will Freeman, a fellow for Latin American studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, noted that Colombia sends almost a third of its exports to the US “so this emergency tariff and the threat to raise it further is serious”.
Trump has promised to carry out the largest mass deportation of illegal migrants in US history, alarming the estimated 11mn undocumented immigrants in the US and countries in the region.
Brazil’s government has condemned as “degrading” the use of handcuffs on its nationals aboard a deportation flight from the US. Brasília said it stopped a flight from continuing to its final destination of Belo Horizonte because of the cuffs, the “poor condition” of the aircraft and the “anger” of the 88 Brazilian citizens over their “undignified treatment”.
Brazil’s justice minister said there had been “flagrant disrespect for the fundamental rights of Brazilian citizens”.
Though Colombia and the US have long been close allies — with Washington providing about $10bn in military and foreign aid to Bogotá to fight insurgents and drug traffickers between 1999 and 2016 — Trump and Petro are ideologically opposed.
“It’s important for Petro and a lot of Latin American leaders to show resistance to this policy on migration,” said Sergio Guzmán, director of Colombia Risk Analysis, a Bogotá-based consultancy. “Petro is trying to show force and to project an ideological difference with Trump.”
The flow of migrants north through the Darién Gap, a treacherous stretch of jungle that separates Colombia and Panama, has dropped 40 per cent in the past year to 302,000, according to Panama’s foreign ministry, following a crackdown by Panamanian authorities.
But many migrants used legal pathways opened by the Biden administration to cross into the US and the overall migrant numbers are still near recent record highs.
Mexico is negotiating with the US over immigration and drugs to try to avoid a 25 per cent tariff on its exports to the US from next week.
Mexican president Claudia Sheinbaum has stressed that while she does not agree with the deportations, Mexico will co-operate with the US and have a “good” relationship with the Trump administration.
Additional reporting by Steff Chávez in Washington
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