The Needless Rift Between America and Colombia
How to Rescue Washington's Most Important Partnership in Latin America
By Kevin Whitaker - December 15, 2025
On January 26, days after U.S. President Donald Trump was inaugurated for the second time, Colombian President Gustavo Petro provoked his country’s most significant bilateral crisis with Washington in over 30 years by refusing to accept Colombian deportees from the United States. The Trump administration immediately retaliated with 25 percent tariffs on imports from Colombia, a ban on Colombian government officials’ entering the United States, and a slowdown in inspections of incoming Colombian cargo and visitors. Colombia capitulated within hours, and the crisis was resolved. But the confrontation set the tone for relations going forward.
In the months since, the two countries have careened from crisis to crisis. Petro’s outspoken condemnation of U.S. policies irritated Washington, as did his failure to distance himself from China and Venezuela, two U.S. adversaries. Petro repeatedly denounced U.S. military strikes on alleged drug trafficking vessels in the Caribbean and the eastern Pacific, going so far as to call Trump a war criminal and urging American troops to disobey his orders. In response, the U.S. State Department revoked the American visas of Petro and members of his inner circle and applied sanctions against other Colombian officials, freezing their assets in the United States and denying them access to the U.S. banking system.
Separately, Petro’s failure to control crime and narcotics production within Colombia, an enforcement effort that had been at the heart of the traditional bilateral relationship, merited and received a sharp response from Washington. In September, the United States “decertified” Colombia—that is, found that it had not met its international counternarcotic obligations—for the first time in nearly 30 years. The following month, Trump called Petro an “illegal drug dealer” and announced an end to all U.S. aid to Colombia. Secretary of State Marco Rubio later hedged, suggesting that U.S. support for some security activities might continue. (In 2024, the United States provided Colombia with nearly $590 million, according to the U.S. State Department.)
After decades of successful cooperation on fighting drug trafficking and transnational crime, relations between Colombia and the United States are at a historic nadir and precipitously getting worse. “I hear Colombia, the country of Colombia, is making cocaine,” Trump told reporters earlier this month. “They have cocaine manufacturing plants, OK, and then they sell us their cocaine. . . . Anybody that’s doing that and selling it into our country is subject to attack.” Responding on social media, Petro invited Trump to come to Colombia to observe the destruction of cocaine laboratories, which he said happens at a rate of one every 40 minutes. He added, “Do not threaten our sovereignty, because you will awaken the jaguar.” Petro has also warned against U.S. military intervention in Venezuela, calling any such operation an “aggression against Latin America.” Speaking to reporters a week later, Trump doubled down on his threat to move on Colombia, singling out Petro: “He better wise up—or he’ll be next.”
It is now possible that the U.S.-Colombian relationship could collapse entirely, bringing an end to the array of political, diplomatic, law enforcement, military, and judicial cooperation developed over the last four decades. For Colombia, a definitive break would dramatically worsen security, especially in rural areas, and enable armed groups to extend their reach in neighboring countries and potentially foment instability on Colombia’s borders. The United States, having lost a key partner in the region, would see its ability to confront transnational crime curtailed. A rupture is an outcome neither side should want—but under the current administrations in Bogotá and Washington, it may be difficult to avoid.
AUSPICIOUS BEGINNINGS
Cooperation on security and law enforcement between the United States and Colombia began in the 1980s at the height of what came to be known as the Escobar era, a time when the infamous drug lord Pablo Escobar and his Medellín cartel were smuggling more than 80 tons of cocaine into the United States each month while terrorizing the Colombian people. By the late 1990s, a Marxist insurgency, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (known by its Spanish acronym, FARC), used profits from the cocaine trade to create a 14,000-member army that represented an existential threat to the Colombian state. In response, the Clinton administration established Plan Colombia, a multifaceted assistance program to confront drug trafficking, defeat the insurgency, and restore the effectiveness of the government.
For the next decade and a half, the United States invested substantial resources to keep Colombia, a liberal democracy, from becoming a failed state. At first, most of the support went to the security forces. The United States trained Colombian troops and has supplied nearly $6 billion in military and police support since 2000, including training and modern helicopters and other equipment. This assistance gave Colombian security forces the strength and mobility required to take on the armed rebels. Over time, this military pressure forced the FARC to relocate to ever more remote areas.
Law enforcement cooperation was another pillar of Plan Colombia. Colombian and U.S. investigators worked jointly, developing confidential sources and using legal wiretaps and other tools to bring the leaders of drug trafficking organizations to justice. The judicial efforts yielded impressive results: since 2002, more than 2,000 Colombian nationals have been extradited to the United States for prosecution, yielding a conviction rate of over 95 percent.
All told, U.S. assistance to Colombia under Plan Colombia amounted to around $14 billion, which included humanitarian and development assistance. Deploying resources that were orders of magnitude smaller than U.S. investments in Afghanistan and Iraq, the United States appeared to have achieved durable, positive results. In 2012, Colombia’s security and legal entities were so respected and effective that the United States created and funded a multiyear effort, the U.S.-Colombia Action Plan on Regional Security Cooperation, through which Colombian police officers and prosecutors trained Central American counterparts.
By the end of 2015, the year Plan Colombia officially expired, every security indicator had moved in the right direction. Murders, kidnappings, and extortion were down. Coca acreage, which reached a low in 2009, was on the rise but under control. The following year, the Colombian government negotiated and signed a peace accord with the FARC, ending what was then one of the world’s longest insurgencies, and the Obama administration launched Peace Colombia, a new aid program focused on helping Colombia consolidate its hard-won gains in security. In 2022, the Biden administration even designated Colombia a “major non-NATO ally,” a clear signal of the excellence of the Colombian security establishment.
SECURITY SPIRAL
Over the last three years, however, Colombia’s security forces have become significantly less effective than at any time since the beginning of Plan Colombia, as 40 percent of army generals and over half of police generals have been forced to retire or were simply fired by the Petro administration. Petro seemed to be seeking to put his stamp on the security forces, ensuring that senior leaders were on board with his new approach on security. The size of the exodus of top officers meant that some of those who replaced the generals lacked the background and contacts to plan, coordinate, and execute effective counterdrug and counterterrorism operations as successfully as previous military leadership. The national Police Intelligence Directorate has been particularly affected; DIPOL was among the most capable partners in the United States’ efforts against criminal groups in the region. Many of the directorate’s former senior officers had extensive experience working with U.S. counterparts, so their departure leaves a gap in the bilateral relationship and marks a significant loss of institutional knowledge in combating crime and narcotics trafficking.
To make matters worse, on Petro’s instruction, the Colombian military has largely discontinued operations in the most conflict-ridden areas. Since taking office in 2022 to fulfill a four-year term, Petro has implemented his so-called Paz Total (Total Peace) effort, designed to reach political accords with every criminal group in the country. Rather than continue aggressive anticrime efforts while negotiating, Petro halted most military actions against criminal groups and ceased the eradication of coca crops. According to the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, these policies drove up coca cultivation to 625,000 acres as of 2023, a record high at the time. Meanwhile, armed groups have greatly expanded their reach, and some have pulled back from negotiations with the government.
The end of U.S. assistance would worsen an already deteriorated security situation. U.S. intelligence support has long underpinned critical Colombian military operations. In 2024, the U.S. embassy provided over $60 million to the army and police to support the helicopter operations that enable Bogotá to move these forces around the country; it also sent five additional helicopters to the Colombian police. Without U.S. intelligence and U.S. funding, Colombia’s army and police will lose much of their agility and their capacity to find and confront illegal armed groups, including the National Liberation Army (ELN), the Gaitanista Self-Defense Force of Colombia (also known as the Clan del Golfo), and several factions of FARC dissidents.
In response, these groups will seek to expand into new territory in pursuit of greater profits from drug production and trafficking, illegal mining, migrant smuggling, extortion, and other crime. At the height of Plan Colombia, in the early 2010s, armed groups had been confined to less than 20 percent of Colombian municipalities; according to the independent state Ombudsman’s Office, illegal armed groups now operate in three of every four Colombian municipalities and have de facto control of a third of all municipalities. Those numbers are likely to rise as criminal enterprises grow more ambitious. And wherever they are present, particularly in rural areas, legal enterprises in Colombia’s palm, rice, banana, cut-flower, and coffee industries are susceptible to extortion.
Another likely consequence is increased competition among criminal groups for territory. The productive areas and transport routes controlled by one group will always be attractive to others. Such disputes are invariably settled with violence, often resulting in significant dislocation of civilian populations. In the past, an effective government security presence could deter such violence, but Colombian forces are increasingly less able to execute this basic function. According to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, more than seven million Colombians are internally displaced because of previous waves of violence. That figure could soon grow.
Another predictable outcome is a resurgence of paramilitarism. In the 1980s and 1990s, so-called self-defense groups were organized by local populations and wealthy landowners to protect life and property from illegal armed groups when the government could not. The most prominent such group, the far-right United Self Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC), claimed to have been established to defend the public. Although that may have been the case, over time the AUC became a brutal criminal organization responsible for some of the worst massacres and forced displacements in Colombian history. Should paramilitary groups now form in response to the deteriorating security situation, there would be justifiable concerns that history may repeat itself.
Finally, the atrophying of the Colombian security forces’ capabilities, exacerbated by the end of U.S. material and intelligence assistance, will permit illegal armed groups to extend their reach not only in Colombia but beyond as well, to neighboring Venezuela and Ecuador, where FARC dissidents and the ELN have long maintained a presence. A broadened criminal presence in Venezuela and Ecuador will surely represent a threat to stability in those countries, with knock-on effects such as a surge in emigration, with many people trying to flee to the United States.
Increased immigration is not the only consequence of a U.S.-Colombian rupture that would be felt by the United States. The loss of Colombia’s security and intelligence partnership risks damaging Washington’s capabilities to combat transnational crime, such as the smuggling of narcotics and human trafficking, and to stem the growth of far-flung criminal organizations that increasingly operate in the region, such as the Italian Mafia, the ’Ndrangheta, and Albanian gangs. The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration and Department of Justice in particular count on Colombian partners’ insights, confidential informants, and wiretaps to track criminal groups and identify their current and emerging leaders. Even with help from Colombia, staying ahead of these evolving and fiercely competitive groups is difficult. Without Colombian partnership, the United States’ crime-fighting capabilities in the region will be severely compromised.
Discontinuing bilateral cooperation would also end extraditions to the United States. U.S. law enforcement relies on extraditions of Colombian criminals to dismantle criminal organizations that are active within the United States and uses the information they provide in plea agreements to advance investigations. Without these processes, U.S. investigators and prosecutors will be partially blinded. And the U.S. military will find its knowledge curtailed when it comes to modern guerrilla warfare: Colombian army and marine units have pioneered new methods for planning and executing complex operations in a highly challenging environment and have advanced the U.S. military’s understanding in these areas. An end to cooperation will mean losing access to the Colombians’ expertise.
A collapse of the bilateral relationship could have global consequences, too. Colombia was a strong post–Cold War example of successful U.S. assistance to an ally in need. A definitive break between the two countries would discredit the United States as a reliable partner—and China would seek to benefit. Although Beijing largely ignored Colombia in the past, it has of late increased its engagement with the country, opening its markets to Colombian products and executing major infrastructure projects, such as the ongoing construction of the $4 billion Bogotá metro system. As part of its soft-power strategy in the region, Beijing has over the past several years invited hundreds of Colombian government officials, business leaders, academics, journalists, and artists to visit China. If the United States further retrenches from Colombia, Beijing will seek to deepen its influence. Chinese leaders will be able to argue, credibly, that the U.S. model of friendship and assistance proved unworkable in Colombia, heretofore Washington’s closest friend and ally in South America. And other countries hedging between Washington and Beijing will take note.
PROSPECTS FOR RAPPROCHEMENT
There will be no rapprochement between the Petro and Trump administrations. Conflicting ideologies and worldviews have created an unbridgeable gulf of mistrust and animus. Worse, it seems that both administrations welcome this state of affairs. Petro revels in his role as an outspoken Trump critic and believes that he gains politically from it. Meanwhile, Trump continues to attack Petro over policy disagreements on narcotics, security, migration, and other issues.
The good news is that the 2026 Colombian presidential elections represent an opportunity for a reset. Colombian presidents serve a single four-year term, and all the candidates to succeed Petro from the center and right have stated their intention to repair the bilateral relationship, strengthen law enforcement and security cooperation, and support a democratic transition in Venezuela. On the left, the Petro-allied senator Iván Cepeda is now leading the polls. Although Cepeda has criticized specific U.S. policies, especially the strikes on alleged drug vessels, as a legislator he has been responsive to citizens’ concerns over Colombia’s unraveling security situation. If he is elected president in May, he may well learn from his predecessor’s mistakes and reorient Colombia toward a more productive relationship with the United States.
Additionally, a large number of powerful stakeholders are invested in rapprochement. The former presidents Álvaro Uribe, Juan Manuel Santos, and Iván Duque have all spoken of the need to repair the relationship. And the U.S. legislative leaders most focused on Colombia, such as Mario Díaz-Balart of Florida and Gregory Meeks of New York in the House and Bernie Moreno of Ohio and Ruben Gallego of Arizona in the Senate, will likely welcome a more stable and cooperative relationship with a new Colombian president. Economic leaders, especially in the American Chambers of Commerce and the National Association of Entrepreneurs of Colombia, have made clear their interest in mending ties between the two countries. Local governments can help, too: the talented mayors of major Colombian cities are now reaching out to contacts in the Colombian and U.S. legislatures, executive branches, and news media to emphasize their support for a reset. Finally, American companies with investments or substantial business in Colombia, especially in the agricultural and energy sectors, have reason to support a more collaborative and predictable bilateral relationship.
Of course, any attempt at improving relations must take into account the unique nature of the Trump administration. The next Colombian administration would be unwise to advocate for a mere return to the status quo ante, which Trump clearly views as having benefited Colombia more than the United States. Rather, it should focus on the critical interests that Trump has identified in the region—drugs, migration, Venezuela, and Chinese influence—and determine how best to collaborate with the United States in one or more of those areas. As the successes of Plan Colombia demonstrate, a fruitful partnership between Bogotá and Washington is not just possible but desirable as well.