Colombian president Gustavo Petro blocked two US military aircraft carrying deported Colombians from landing in his country, prompting a feud with Donald Trump who enacted emergency tariffs and other retaliatory measures.
The US president responded fiercely in a post on his Truth Social network when he was informed that two repatriation flights from the US to Colombia had been denied landing clearance.
Trump wrote that flights had “a large number of Illegal Criminals” and said the landing-denial order was given by “Colombia’s Socialist President Gustavo Petro”, who he said “is already very unpopular amongst his people”.
He accused Petro of jeopardizing US national security and public safety and directed his administration “take the following urgent and decisive retaliatory measures”.
The measures include doubling tariffs on Colombian exports to the US to 50%; a ban and visa revocations on the Colombian government officials “and all Allies and Supporters”, and enhanced inspections of all Colombian nationals and cargo entering the US and what he called “national security grounds”.
“These measures are just the beginning,” Trump added. “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!”
In response, Petro ordered an increase of import tariffs on goods from the US in retaliation to Donald Trump’s announcement of tariffs on Colombia and sanctions on Colombian government officials.
Petro, in a post on Twitter/X, said he ordered the “foreign trade minister to raise import tariffs from the U.S. by 25%”.
“American products whose price will rise within the national economy must be replaced by national production, and the government will help in this regard,” the post continued. The US is Colombia’s largest trading partner, with exports including crude petroleum, coffee and cut flowers.
The back-and-forth between the two leaders depicted the rising tensions between central and south US governments and Washington over US deportation flights. Mexico had also reportedly refused to receive a similar flight on Saturday, according to US officials cited by Reuters and NBC News.
In an early Sunday post on Twitter/X, Colombia’s leftist leader wrote: “A migrant is not a criminal and must be treated with the dignity that every human being deserves.
“That is why I ordered the return of US military planes carrying Colombian migrants,” Petro wrote, sharing a video of Brazilian deportees who had been flown out of the US on Friday, shackled at the wrists and ankles.
He added: “I cannot force migrants to remain in a country that does not want them. But if that country returns them, it must be with dignity and respect – for both them and our nation. In civilian planes, and without treating them like criminals, we will welcome our compatriots. Colombia deserves respect,” wrote the president.
Secretary of state Marco Rubio issued a statement accusing the Colombian leader of revoking the flights’ authorizations. “Colombian President Petro had authorized flights and provided all needed authorizations and then canceled his authorization when the planes were in the air,” the statement read.
President Trump has made it clear that under his administration, America will no longer be lied to nor taken advantage of.”
In an earlier post, Petro had already written: “The US must establish a protocol for the dignified treatment of migrants before we accept their return.”
Petro’s office said in an earlier statement that the presidential plane would be made available to transport the migrants who had been scheduled to arrive on the military planes.
Petro’s comments add to the growing chorus of discontent in Latin America as the US president’s week-old administration starts mobilizing for mass deportations.
A flight carrying 88 deported Brazilians landed in Brazil, but not without triggering the first diplomatic clash between Trump’s new administration and Brazil’s leftist president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.
The flight, which left Alexandria, Louisiana, on Friday, was destined for Belo Horizonte in south-eastern Brazil. However, due to technical issues, it made unscheduled stops in Panama, and Manaus in northern Brazil.
US officials reportedly sought to continue the journey, but the Brazilian government intervened, dispatching an air force aircraft to complete the final leg without handcuffs and leg irons. The deportees arrived in Belo Horizonte at about 9pm on Saturday.
In a statement issued on Sunday, Brazil’s ministry of foreign affairs announced it would file a formal “request for clarification” with the US government over the “degrading treatment” of the deportees – including six children, who reportedly were not shackled.
Such deportation flights have been ongoing since the first Trump administration signed an agreement with Brazil in 2017. Last year alone, 17 flights transported deportees from Alexandria to Belo Horizonte.
However, the Brazilian government claims that the use of handcuffs and leg irons “violates the terms of the agreement with the US, which requires the dignified, respectful, and humane treatment of deportees”.
Deportees told Brazilian media upon their arrival that they were assaulted and threatened by US agents during the flight.
An internal Department of Homeland Security memo obtained by the New York Times revealed that the Trump administration is rolling out a new series of stringent measures to expedite deportations. The directive grants Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) officers sweeping authority to fast-track removals.
Officials from the US state department, Pentagon, US Department of Homeland Security and US Immigration and Customs Enforcement did not immediately reply to requests for comment.
The use of US military aircraft to carry out deportation flights is part of the Pentagon’s response to Trump’s national emergency declaration on immigration on Monday.
In the past, US military aircraft have been used to relocate individuals from one country to another, like during the US withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021.
This has been the first time in recent memory that US military aircraft were used to fly migrants out of the country, one US official said.
