Trump punishes Colombia for refusing entry to deportation flights
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WASHINGTON — Facing another early challenge to his immigration policies, President Trump on Sunday ordered a 25% tariff on exports from Colombia and a travel ban on Colombian officials and “their supporters” as punishment for the country’s refusal to accept military deportation flights from the U.S.
“These measures are just the beginning,” Trump declared on social media.
Colombia’s action came as numerous countries in Latin America are attempting to figure out how to deal with the week-old Trump administration, pledging cooperation on some immigration issues but also seeking fair treatment and respect for their own national sovereignty.
Media reports in the U.S. quoted Pentagon officials as saying Mexico also denied landing permission to a deportation flight late last week. While Mexico did not explicitly confirm or deny the action, its Foreign Ministry emphasized its spirit of continued cooperation with the U.S. President Claudia Sheinbaum said she would address the matter Monday.
The 1,500 migrants living in this Mexico City encampment face hard choices with President Trump in office.
Nevertheless, tensions are high in Mexico, the country that is the largest source of U.S.-bound migrants and where tens of thousands are becoming stranded as Trump ends amnesty and other legal-entry programs.
Both Colombia and Mexico in the past accepted some deportation flights but may be reacting now to Trump’s threats to increase the number exponentially and include more third-country migrants. Some in the region are also unnerved by the switch from civilian aircraft to U.S. military planes in the deportations.
Trump said he would raise the tariffs on all Colombian goods coming to the U.S. to 50% after one week if flights are not allowed. While Colombia is not high on the list of the region’s traders with the U.S., exporting only about $16 billion in goods, coffee is among its top commodities. It also exports roses and other fresh-cut flowers, used widely in the U.S. on holidays like Valentines Day.
He also said he was revoking U.S. visas from various members of the Colombian government, putting visa restrictions on tens of thousands of other Colombians, enhancing customs and border inspections on people and cargo from Colombia and imposing a raft of unspecified financial and banking sanctions.
How will Mexican leaders respond if, as expected, Trump pressures them to accept deportees from third countries? ‘Mexico is in a really tough spot.’
Trump’s wrath came in response to actions by Gustavo Petro, the left-leaning president of Colombia, who is dealing with his own immigration crisis: the arrival of massive numbers of people fleeing neighbor Venezuela.
“I was just informed that two repatriation flights from the United States, with a large number of Illegal Criminals, were not allowed to land in Colombia,” Trump wrote. “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!”
The two military C-17 aircraft departed San Diego with about 80 migrants and headed for Colombia before being turned around, officials said.
With Trump’s return to office, Petro made a brief attempt at avoiding confrontation, but that seems to have vanished.
Also writing on social media, Petro earlier Sunday did not rule out allowing the repatriation of Colombian nationals but said the process had to be “dignified.”
“The U.S. cannot treat Colombian migrants like criminals,” Petro wrote. “I am denying the entry of United States airplanes with Colombian migrants to our territory. The U.S. must establish a protocol for the dignified treatment of migrants before we receive them.”
He later said he would offer his presidential plane to pick up Colombian deportees to avoid them being left stranded and stateless. He also said he would play a tit-for-tat with Trump, suggesting he would impose a 25% tariff on U.S. exports.
Mexico’s president walks a fine line between pleasing her constituents and placating Trump.
The defiance from Latin America comes ahead of Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s trip later this week to the region, his first as Trump’s top diplomat. Neither Colombia nor Mexico are on his itinerary, although immigration will be on his agenda, especially in Panama, Guatemala and El Salvador.
He is expected to press the countries to accept deportees. In Panama, the topic of Trump’s desire to seize the Panama Canal will also dominate discussions. (The other countries he will visit are Costa Rica and the Dominican Republic.)
Throughout the region, Rubio is also hoping to begin to counter China’s growing economic and diplomatic influence.
Guatemala on Friday allowed three U.S. flights — two military and one charter — to land there carrying 265 expelled migrants. And Brazil allowed two flights last week but complained that returning migrants were shackled.
“President Trump has made it clear that under his administration, America will no longer be lied to nor taken advantage of,” Rubio said in a terse statement reacting to Petro’s position on the flights. He said it was the responsibility of nations to take back their citizens who are in the United States without legal authorization.
ACLU sues to stop Trump policy that allows immediate deportation of some immigrants. The new policy could pave the way for mass expulsions.
But, he said, “Colombian President Petro had authorized flights and provided all needed authorizations and then canceled his authorization when the planes were in the air.”
Rubio later said he had suspended the issuing of all visas to Colombians at the U.S. Embassy in Bogota.
Resistance to Trump’s immigration crackdown in which he has threatened to expel several million people, including some who are in the United States legally but temporarily, is percolating slowly as advocates and the courts grasp the exact nature of the administration’s plans.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement on Sunday announced it had launched long-anticipated raids in Chicago aimed at preserving “public safety and national security” by rounding up immigrants and “keeping potentially dangerous criminal aliens out of our communities.” ICE teamed up with the FBI, U.S. Marshals and several other federal agencies.
The first challenge to Trump’s immigration plan came swiftly, when a federal judge blocked the administration’s attempt to deny automatic U.S. citizenship to people born in the U.S. to noncitizens. Automatic, or birthright citizenship, is enshrined in the U.S. Constitution. The judge, a Reagan appointee based in Seattle, granted a stay in Trump officials’ attempt to enact the change in law.
Pope Francis says Donald Trump’s plans to impose mass deportations of immigrants would be a ‘disgrace.’
Trump has portrayed the illegal entry of migrants over the southern U.S. border as an invasion. Although illegal crossings did rise early in the Biden administration, they fell sharply over the last year, with current levels the lowest they’ve been since Trump left office.
The White House made a big splash of the start of the deportation flights, although thousands of such deportations took place under Biden, albeit not with military participation.
Will Freeman, an expert on Colombia at the Council on Foreign Relations, said Petro will eventually be forced to back down but seems to want the fight for now.
“I can’t think of many *worse* strategic blunders for the U.S., as it competes w/ China, than going nuclear against its oldest strategic ally & last big country in S. America where it enjoys a trade advantage,” Freeman said on social media.
“Colombia becomes a testing ground for the threat-forward approach to Latin America,” he added. “Colombians lose out, & so will the U.S. vis-a-vis China.”
Times staff writer Patrick McDonnell in Mexico City contributed to this report.
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