Colombian President Gustavo Petro, pictured at the White House in April 2023, said Sunday his country will not accept U.S. flights of deported migrants. (Elizabeth Frantz/For The Washington Post)
The Washington Post
January 26, 2025; updated January 27, 2025
President Donald Trump on Sunday announced strict tariffs and visa restrictions on Colombia after the South American nation’s president, Gustavo Petro, said his country will not accept deportation flights from the United States unless the Trump administration ensures that repatriated Colombian migrants are treated with the “dignity that a human being deserves.”
In a series of posts shared on X on Sunday, Petro said the U.S. can’t treat Colombian migrants “like criminals.”
“I do not authorize the entry of North American planes carrying Colombian migrants into our territory,”
Petro said. “The U.S. must establish a protocol of dignified treatment of migrants before we receive them.”
On Sunday, Trump retaliated by announcing 25 percent tariffs on all Colombian goods coming into the United States, as well as a travel ban and immediate visa revocations for Colombian government officials, their allies and supporters, and visa sanctions on all party members, family members and supporters of the Colombian government.
“These measures are just the beginning,” Trump threatened in a post on Truth Social. “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!”
Petro’s refusal to accept the deportation flights could complicate Trump’s promises of mass deportations in the early days of his administration. Other Latin American leaders have also raised questions over the United States treatment of deported migrants.
Brazil’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs is requesting an explanation from the U.S. government over the “degrading treatment” deportees were subject to on a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement repatriation flight Friday.
Only Colombia, however, has said it will not accept deportation flights unless migrant conditions improve.
Petro explained on X that he made U.S. “military planes” carrying Colombian migrants turn around.
“I cannot make migrants stay 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,” Petro wrote. “We will receive our fellow citizens on civilian planes, without treating them like criminals.”
Petro’s refusal to accept these flights come as Trump and his administration ramp up efforts to detain undocumented immigrants nationwide — efforts that began soon after the president took office Monday.
4.1 million migrants
Places migrants have settled since 2014. The Washington Post analyzed more than 4.1 million U.S. immigration court records from the past decade to find out where migrants come from and where they live once they arrive in the country. credit...The Washington Post
Cities where migrants have settled by nationality Credit...The Washington Post
Petro — Colombia’s first leftist president, who is closely allied with the current presidents of Brazil and Mexico — has taken a more defensive stance against Trump and his deportations.
On X, he noted that over 15,600 U.S. citizens are living in Colombia without the proper documents. Petro said that, while he’s aware some Americans are living in Colombia illegally, he’s not going to raid them and return them to the U.S. in chains, saying that his government is “the opposite of Nazis.”
“No me verán jamás quemando una bandera gringa,” Petro said on X, Spanish for: “You won’t see me burning a U.S. flag.”
January 27 Update
Trump backs off trade threats after Colombia agrees to deportation flights
The nations spent much of the day in a tense standoff, with the U.S. president threatening tariffs and visa restrictions after Colombia turned away two deportation flights.
The United States and Colombia averted a trade war, for now, after the White House said late Sunday that Bogotá agreed to accept deportation flights from the United States.
The two nations had spent much of the day in a tense standoff, with President Donald Trump threatening to impose steep tariffs and visa restrictions on Colombia after the South American nation turned away two deportation flights.
The tariffs would have probably devastated Colombia’s flower industry — a key export to the United States — just before the Valentine’s Day season, while also escalating prices for American consumers. Coffee prices in the United States could have soared, too, given that Colombia is a major exporter and that businesses tend to pass along the cost of tariffs to consumers through higher prices.
But late Sunday, the White House said Colombia “has agreed to all of President Trump’s terms,” including allowing U.S. military aircraft to send Colombians back. The suspension of visas would remain in effect until the first planeload of deportees is accepted, and the order on tariffs and sanctions would be held “in reserve” in case Colombia does not honor its end of the deal.
“Today’s events make clear to the world that America is respected again,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement announcing the deal. “President Trump will continue to fiercely protect our nation’s sovereignty, and he expects all other nations of the world to fully cooperate in accepting the deportation of their citizens illegally present in the United States.”
Luis Gilberto Murillo, Colombia’s foreign minister, and the Colombian ambassador to the United States will hold a series of high-level meetings after the agreements between the two countries. Murillo said the meetings will take place in the coming days to follow up on an “exchange of diplomatic notes” between the two governments.
The Colombian government will continue to receive deported Colombians, “guaranteeing them dignified conditions,” Murillo said in a video statement late Sunday. “We have overcome the impasse with the United States government.”
Petro made available the presidential plane to facilitate the travel of the deported Colombians who were going to arrive in the country early Sunday morning.
Despite the détente, the dramatic dispute was the most significant diplomatic crisis in decades between the United States and one of its most important allies in Latin America.
It also apparently took officials from both countries by surprise. Washington and Bogotá have for years had a bilateral agreement allowing for regular deportation flights that have, until now, gone to Colombia at the rate of at least twice a week without problems.
Under the agreement, the United States sends Colombia a manifest 48 hours in advance of the flights with the names of the deportees, and Colombia provides authorization before the planes take off. That happened in this case, according to a Colombian official who spoke on the condition of anonymity about the sensitive issue, and Bogotá agreed to accept the flight.
It was unclear whether or when Petro was made aware that, for the first time, the planes being used were U.S. military C-17s, although video of shackled deportees being marched onto military aircraft was widely televised and posted on social media.
The Colombian official said more than 200 people were on the two flights to Colombia. The planes were approaching Bogotá early Sunday morning when Petro “decided to deny entry” and, within minutes, posted on X that he had done so, the official said.
Shortly thereafter, Trump posted about his retaliatory actions, saying they were warranted because Colombia was violating its legal obligations and was harming the national security of the United States.
Both presidents have long been known to make frequent use of social media in undiplomatic ways. In response to Trump’s post announcing the tariffs, Petro — a member of Colombia’s M-19 guerrilla group in the 1980s who was elected president in 2022 — replied: “If you know somebody stubborn, that’s me.”
Trump’s tariffs, if enacted, could have had disastrous consequences on the economy in Colombia; the United States is Colombia’s top trading partner, accounting for 26 percent of its trade in 2023.
Remittances to Colombia make up an estimated 3.4 percent of the country’s economy — more than coffee, a key Colombian export. Most of those remittances come from the United States.
It is one of the top recipients of U.S. foreign assistance since the 2000 launch of Plan Colombia, a counternarcotics and security initiative that has often had bipartisan support in the United States. The United States has sent about $14 billion in funding to Colombia since 2000, at least 60 percent of it for the military and police.
The Colombian American Chamber of Commerce, AmCham Colombia, also warned of widespread shocks to the economy if the tariffs would have taken effect. “In coffee alone, more than 500,000 families depend on this sector. In flower farming, thousands of single mothers would lose their livelihood,” the chamber said.
Earlier in the day, Sergio Guzmán, director of the political consultancy Colombia Risk Analysis, said that the standoff could push Colombia closer to China. He noted that Colombia has expressed interest in joining BRICS — the economic partnership of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa — and China’s Belt and Road Initiative. Amid the diplomatic crisis between Petro and Trump on Sunday, China’s ambassador to Colombia posted on X saying Colombia and China are in the “best moment of our diplomatic relations.”
While Petro has long criticized the United States, including its role in the war on drugs, he walked a careful line with the Biden administration. Despite Colombia’s role as a cornerstone partner for the United States in South America, Trump appears to see Petro as “an irreverent president who he wants to make an example of,” Guzmán of Colombia Risk Analysis said.
“He chose the wrong moment to face up Trump,” Guzmán said. “He’s going to drag us into a personal conflict with President Trump, with a significant burden on all of us.”
The rising tensions could have still repercussions for Colombians and their ability to travel to the United States, especially at a time when the Trump administration has said it will implement travel bans for certain nationalities, said Diego Chaves-González, a senior manager for the Migration Policy Institute’s Latin America and Caribbean initiative.
Chaves-González, a Colombia native, urged the importance of reinforcing diplomatic channels between the two countries. “The most damaging thing would be to continue to manage this situation in an improvised way on social media,” he said.
Petro’s initial refusal to accept these flights came as Trump and his administration are upping efforts to detain undocumented immigrants nationwide — efforts that began soon after the president took office Monday.
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Leavitt claimed that on Thursday, Mexico “accepted a record 4 deportation flights in 1 day!” While NBC News reported Friday that Mexico had refused to accept a U.S. military jet carrying deportees a day earlier, the Mexican Foreign Ministry denied it was blocking the returns of its citizens.
“Mexico has a good relationship with the government of the United States, and we cooperate with respect for each country’s sovereignty on a wide range of issues, including migration,” it said in a statement. “As far as repatriations go, we always accept the arrival of Mexicans in our land with open arms.”
In Brazil, 88 Brazilian nationals were subject to what the country said was undignified treatment on a repatriation flight. The passengers were handcuffed at their hands and feet and the air-conditioning system was broken, among other problems, according to a statement from the Foreign Ministry posted Saturday.
The flight, which was bound for Confins International Airport in Belo Horizonte, had to make an emergency landing Friday in Manaus due to technical problems, Brazil’s Ministry of Justice and Public Security said.
The minister of justice and public security, Ricardo Lewandowski, slammed “the flagrant disregard for the fundamental rights of Brazilian citizens.”
Regarding claims that deportees have been mistreated, former U.S. officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said that shackles have been traditionally used around the world to prevent deportees from kicking, biting or attacking accompanying security officials.
Terrence McCoy, Mary Beth Sheridan, Jeff Stein and Michael Birnbaum contributed to this report.
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