Colombian President Gustavo Petro thought that he’d rebalance lopsided relations with his returning US counterpart by abruptly rejecting two previously agreed military flights for repatriating his country’s illegal immigrants but was ultimately taught an unforgettable lesson. Trump reacted with fury by threatening 25% tariffs that would double in a week’s time and sanctioning high-level officials on national security pretexts among other punitive measures, which quickly prompted Petro to capitulate.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt then confirmed her country’s victory in its brief dispute with Colombia, shortly after which Petro rage-tweeted a convoluted rant about imperialism and racism as a parting shot against Trump that was widely met with mockery online, especially from Americans. This short-lived scandal was significant since Trump proved how serious he is about leveraging tariffs and sanctions to coerce Ibero-American countries into accepting the return of their repatriated citizens.
He won the 2016 election in part because of his pledge to build a southern border wall for stopping illegal immigration, but after an estimated 8 million illegals flooded into the country during Biden’s term, he then promised to expel as many as possible if voters returned him to office like they ultimately did. It’ll be difficult to return all of them, however, which is why his administration wants to coerce them into voluntarily leaving on their own by creating extremely onerous conditions for those who remain.
To that end, repatriating some of them to their homelands on military flights – including in handcuffs like what just happened to some illegal immigrants from Brazil – is meant to intimidate them into returning back home on their own terms, ergo the importance of ensuring that these flights aren’t rejected. In parallel with this, the Trump Administration is exploring an agreement to deport asylum seekers to El Salvador, which is now globally known for its zero-tolerance of gang members.
On the topic, US-sanctioned Venezuela halted repatriation flights last February after briefly allowing their resumption in October 2023, so suspected Venezuelan gang members might be sent straight from the US to Salvadoran prisons if a deal is reached. Combined with an unprecedented ramping up of ICE raids across the country, those who remain in the US illegally will always have to look over their shoulder and fear either being deported back to their homelands or sent to El Salvador depending on who they are.
The Trump Administration rightly considers illegal immigration to be a national security threat, which explains Trump’s harsh reaction to Petro rejecting those two previously agreed military flights. If he didn’t make an example out of him, then most Ibero-American countries would predictably defy the US on this issue as well, thus ruining his ambitious repatriation plans. Trump therefore had to remind Colombia and every other country in the hemisphere that they’re the US’ junior partner.
Failure to submit to its reasonable demands that they receive their repatriated citizens who illegally immigrated to the US will entail crushing tariff and sanctions consequences that’ll risk harming their economies and greatly inconveniencing their political elite. Furthermore, disrespecting the US and Trump personally like Petro did is absolutely unacceptable in what Trump described as the nascent “Golden Age of America”, and those that do so will be made to pay the price, including reputationally.
The so-called “rules-based order” was never what the Biden Administration mispresented it as being with regard to the claim of every country supposedly being equal and having to follow the same rules.
It was always about maintaining the US’ declining unipolar hegemony in the emerging Multipolar World Order by reinforcing the post-Old Cold War international hierarchy atop which it sits. A carrot-and-stick approach pairs with explicit double standards to coax countries into falling in line with varying success.
Those that are dependent on the US market and/or military equipment like most Ibero-American countries are tend to bend to its will while those like Russia that are more autarkic and strategically autonomous tend to resist. The Obama and Biden Administrations tried to disguise this reality with lofty rhetoric and by sometimes turning a blind eye to transgressions from its partners like those Ibero-American countries that hitherto refused to accept their repatriated citizens, but Trump is more direct.
He has no compunction about openly reminding them of their junior status vis-à-vis the US since he’d rather that his country be feared than loved if he has to choose between them per Machiavelli. Additionally, Trump is preparing for negotiations with Putin over Ukraine as well as with Xi over trade and likely also Taiwan, so he’d appear weak in their eyes if he let middling leader like Petro publicly defy and even insult him without consequence.
These imperatives made him escalate with Colombia.
The example that Trump just made out of Petro will therefore reverberate across the world.
What he calls the “Golden Age of America” can more accurately be called the era of US hyper-realism in foreign affairs whereby it explicitly declares its interests and then aggressively pursues them without any care for global opinion.
Thus, it might be better for Russia and China to compromise with the US instead of challenge it if they won’t replicate this policy, or if they lack the same power or will to use it.
