Colombia is set to become a model for U.S. President Donald Trump’s Latin American foreign policy led by President-elect Abelardo de la Espriella.
Trump congratulated de la Espriella on Sunday on his victory in Colombia’s presidential election, and the two men share a commitment to crack down on crime with military force and support pro-market economic policies that could spur new U.S. investment in Colombia.
De la Espriella, a naturalized U.S. citizen who worked as a criminal defense attorney in Miami for more than a decade, was a far-right political outsider who had been endorsed by Trump in his presidential bid.
Colombia and the United States are expected to restore a long-standing alliance marred by tensions under outgoing President Gustavo Petro.
“I think President Trump would be willing to invest resources in Colombia, in terms of military, money and even investments, to strengthen the alliance and make de la Espriella and Colombia a security beachhead,” said Christopher Sabatini, director of the Latin America program at Chatham House, a London-based think tank.
Colombia is expected to welcome stronger and more direct U.S. involvement in efforts to reduce drug trafficking, illegal mining and armed conflict, which de la Espriella has promised to fight with a “mano dura,” or iron fist. On the campaign trail, the far-right candidate pledged to kill Petro’s “complete peace” strategy of negotiating with armed guerrilla groups and cartels and build 10 large, maximum-security prisons like those built by President Nayib Bukele in El Salvador.
“I will wipe out the narco-terrorists, the cockroaches and the rats that I have declared as military targets,” de la Espriella told The Associated Press during the campaign. “I will pour out on them the wrath of God like they have never seen before.”
The president-elect also advocated opening a U.S. military base in Colombia and conducting joint operations to fumigate coca crops and bomb drug trafficking groups.
Under de la Espriella, Colombia is also expected to join the Shield of Americas, an international alliance launched by the Trump administration in March to coordinate an aggressive crackdown on transnational cartels. Importantly, it does not yet include Brazil, Mexico and Colombia, which are ruled by prominent left-wing leaders who were not invited to join the alliance.
Ivan Briscoe, a Latin America expert at the International Crisis Group, said that in this militant approach, Colombia is returning to the policies of Petro’s predecessor, Iván Duque (2018-2022), who “accepted military deployments.”
“We are again entering an era of storm and thunder policies for crimes that are not new and have been tried before and found wanting, so we will be dealing with the consequences and aftermath for many years to come,” Briscoe said.
“It may not be the only solution, but frankly people are tired of these other alternatives,” Sabatini said.
Briscoe also warned that the United States is likely to prioritize the goal of stopping the flow of drugs to its borders, while Latin American countries are more interested in addressing domestic unrest linked to organized crime.
The question, Briscoe added, will be whether Trump is interested primarily in cracking down on crime and drugs, or in having a “loyal audience for him and his government” among Latin American leaders.
It is also unclear how much money the United States is willing to spend on security operations in Colombia, as President Trump has aggressively cut foreign aid since taking office.
Others argue that military cooperation may be secondary to expanding economic ties.
The United States is Colombia’s largest trading partner and source of foreign direct investment, although the latter has been declining in recent years.
“Mainly on the Colombian side, the goals of the relationship are economic: commerce, investment and tourism, so in that sense we can expect some progress,” said Javier Garay, a political scientist at the Universidad Externado de Colombia.
De la Espriella hopes to revitalize the country’s fossil fuel industry through fracking and oil and gas exploration, which had stalled under the Petro administration.
The ultimate success of Colombia’s relationship with the United States may depend on the relationship between the two presidents.
“We know that President Trump is a very volatile person,” Garay said. “He may change his decisions and one day he may become a friend, or he may change because another president or another government does not follow his wishes,” Garay said.
Sabatini said there was also a risk that Trump would lose interest in Latin America and turn America’s attention elsewhere. In Venezuela, conservative opposition parties supporting Nicolas Maduro celebrated his ouster but were disappointed they were unable to gain control in his wake.
In that context, de la Espriella could follow the lead of other right-wing Latin American leaders and hedge Colombia’s bets against Trump by maintaining a strong relationship with China, forming other alliances, and ensuring that the Colombian military is not at the beck and call of the United States.
“This will be the way the government manages its extremely complex relationship with the United States,” Briscoe said.
However, with President de la Espriella set to take office on August 7, President Trump is expressing optimism about the future of the relationship between the two countries.
“I look forward to working together to build a strong relationship between Colombia and the United States that will bring a new level of greatness to both countries,” Trump wrote on Truth Social this week.
Featured image caption: Split image of US President Donald Trump (left) and Abelardo de la Espriella (right).
Featured image credit: @POTUS and @ABDELAESPRIELLA via X
