By: Camilo Daza Manga
For decades, Colombia has been a cornerstone of U.S. counternarcotics strategy in Latin America — a major non-NATO ally, the fifth-largest U.S. export market in the hemisphere, and the source of 85% of actionable intelligence used by U.S. naval forces to seize illicit narcotics in the Caribbean Sea between January 2024 and June 2025. Yet an already tumultuous relationship between U.S. President Donald Trump and Colombian President Gustavo Petro — two leaders politically opposed but similar in personality and equally vocal on social media — has boiled over this fall, resulting in a series of escalating measures that risk undermining the Trump administration’s own counternarcotics objectives.
The rupture began in September, when the administration decertified Colombia as cooperating with U.S. counternarcotics efforts — the first such designation for Colombia since 1997 — placing it alongside Venezuela, Bolivia, Afghanistan, and Myanmar. Although President Trump issued a national interest waiver at the time, preventing automatic sanctions, the accompanying presidential memorandum was unsparing, declaring that surging cocaine production “rests solely with [Colombia’s] political leadership.” Weeks later, the administration revoked Petro’s visa after he joined a pro-Palestinian demonstration in New York and urged U.S. soldiers to disobey orders, making him the first Colombian president since Ernesto Samper in 1997 to face such a sanction.
By October, the conflict had escalated dramatically. Following unprecedented U.S. military strikes in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean on alleged drug trafficking vessels, Petro accused the U.S. of murdering an innocent Colombian fisherman after one such strike. Trump responded by calling Petro an “illegal drug leader” on social media, threatening that “Petro better close up these killing fields immediately, or the United States will close them up for him.” Trump also threatened to raise tariffs on Colombia and announced all U.S. funding to the country would be halted because Petro “does nothing to stop” drug production.
The Treasury Department then placed Petro, his wife, his son, and a close adviser on the Office of Foreign Assets Control’s (OFAC) sanctions list of Specially Designated Nationals (SDN) and Blocked Persons. This action froze their U.S. assets and adding Colombia’s president to a roster that includes the leaders of Russia, Venezuela, and North Korea.
The resulting paradox is difficult to ignore: in attempting to pressure Colombia into more aggressive counternarcotics action, the administration risks weakening the very cooperation it seeks to strengthen. The threat to suspend all U.S. funding to Colombia — which received approximately $230 million in fiscal year 2025 — could cripple the country’s security forces at precisely the moment they confront the nation’s greatest security crisis in over a decade.
However, much of this remains in the realm of threats rather than action. As of late October, Colombia’s ambassador to the U.S. noted no actual change in payments, and intelligence-sharing and military cooperation continue between the two countries. Whether this signals potential de-escalation or merely a lag in implementation remains unclear, though Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) has suggested Trump would soon outline “future potential military operations against Venezuela and Colombia” to Congress.
The personality-driven clash reflects both leaders’ domestic imperatives. Trump views Petro — Colombia’s first leftist president and former member of a now-demobilized rebel group who has attempted to block deportation flights from the U.S., called for the legalization of cocaine, protested U.S. involvement in what he termed a “genocide” in Gaza, restored relations with Venezuela, and joined China’s Belt and Road Initiative — as the perfect foil to make an example of and signal his toughness on drugs. Meanwhile, Petro, who is term-limited and faces low approval ratings and mounting scandals ahead of elections in 2026, has used the confrontation to position his electoral coalition as defenders of Colombian sovereignty.
Still, nine months remain until Colombia’s next president takes office — nine months during which institutional frameworks strengthened to the tune of $10 billion through Plan Colombia face considerable strain. Even after relations eventually stabilize, the damage to the structures supporting a 200-year partnership may outlast both administrations.
But what incentive does either mercurial leader have to de-escalate as things stand?
