Last January 26, diplomatic relations between Colombia and the United States, or between Gustavo Petro and Donald Trump, had their first crisis. And although today bilateral relations are considered normalized, the truth is that this “impasse” has left a lot to talk about. For almost twelve hours, the official channels of discussion were the accounts of the “X” platform of the two leaders. This indicated that experts in the field no longer manage crises, but that they put out the fires caused by the decisions and hasty communications of the presidents in networks.
Six days after his inauguration, Donald Trump is beginning to show what will be the tone of his mandate in terms of foreign policy. For a few hours, relations between the United States and its historic ally in the region, Colombia, were overshadowed by a series of personal statements made by the presidents of both countries in the name of their nations through tweets on the “X” platform.
It all began in the early hours of Sunday, January 26, when Petro wrote in his personal “X” account that he gave the order that the airplanes coming from the United States, with almost 200 Colombians, could not land. One of these airplanes did not take off and the other had to return. The main reason mentioned by the Colombian president was the undignified treatment given to the Colombian nationals and their denomination as “criminals”. This was followed by a series of tweets that, rather than justifying his decision, expressed a discourse around the “external enemy”.
The response from the Trump administration came quickly. Among the announcements, the one that caused the greatest concern among Colombians was that, as of Monday, January 27, the visa office of the Colombian embassy would not provide service. In response, the Colombian president said that about 15,000 Americans should regularize their status in the country. Minutes later, Trump threatened that “nobody makes a mockery of the United States”, and announced that the Colombian government had already authorized the arrival of the airplanes.
An empty discussion?
According to Colombian migration figures, 14,199 Colombians were deported from the United States in 124 flights in 2024 and in fact, there was already an agreement between the governments that was being executed. However, this time it seems that the conditions under which the deported Colombians were treated changed, and this is what started the short but intense crisis.
One of the measures taken by Trump in response to the Colombian government’s refusal to receive the deportees was to increase tariffs by 25% for all Colombian products entering the United States, and within a week they would rise to 50%. The Colombian response was not long in coming and President Petro announced, again by “X” platform, that he gave the order to his trade minister to raise tariffs on imports from the United States by 25%. Decisions, which of course would affect the Colombian economy much more than the U.S. economy.
Had the measures been implemented, this would have caused a potential economic and fiscal crisis for Colombia. Luis Fernando Mejía, executive director of Fedesarrollo, mentioned in his report that in 2024 Colombia’s exports to the United States represented 29% of the country’s total exports. This would lead to an unprecedented inflationary scenario in the country, an increase in country risk and depreciation of the peso. So, whichever way you look at it, the implications would be greater for the Colombian people.
21st century diplomacy
Academics, unions, former ambassadors, mayors, and parliamentarians called on President Petro to calm down, although throughout Sunday afternoon, the crisis seemed to continue to escalate. However, around 10 p.m., the outgoing Minister of Foreign Affairs, Luis Gilberto Murillo, informed that the crisis had been overcome and that diplomatic channels would be kept open, which were never opened during the whole crisis.
Beyond the serious facts behind the massive deportations and the way in which the Trump administration intends to promote them, this episode raises not only questions, but also calls us to reflect on diplomatic work. Through social networks, the leaders of one side and the other sent confusing, poorly written messages, with diatribes and analogies about the place of each other in the world. Through X they gave orders and, beyond exposing their egos, they revived discourses that, we thought, had been forgotten since the end of the Cold War, with a marked ideological polarization centered on ideas such as the external enemy and sovereignty.
But the crisis of last January 26, also showed us that diplomacy, that so-called art and craft, was the one who finally managed to stop a situation that would have continued in a chain of absurd decisions, which in no way benefit the citizens, and even less the repatriated, whose fate remains uncertain.
Now, President Petro has the presidential airplane at his disposal for the “dignified return of nationals” and the President of Honduras Xiomara Castro has called a meeting within the framework of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) to address the issue of regional cooperation on migration and the protection of human rights.
But what is really urgent is to understand how decisions are made in times of crisis: are social networks the new instrument of diplomacy, and in the case of the United States and Colombia, has the impasse been overcome, or is this the beginning of a tug-of-war that will keep us in constant uncertainty?
*Machine translation proofread by Janaína da Silva.
Autor
PhD in Political Studies and in sciences with a focus on International Relations: Externado University of Colombia and University of São Paulo. President of RedIntercol and professor- researcher at the Externado University of Colombia.
