Colombia said on Monday it has recalled its ambassador from Washington after US President Donald Trump announced he would raise tariffs on the South American nation and stop all payments to it, escalating a dispute following US military strikes on vessels allegedly transporting drugs.
Trump also called Colombia’s leftist President Gustavo Petro an “illegal drug leader” on Sunday, which Petro’s government described as offensive. Colombia’s currency fell by one point four per cent to 3,889 pesos per US dollar in early trading on Monday.
“Daniel Garcia-Pena, Ambassador of Colombia in the United States of America, has been recalled for consultations by President Gustavo Petro and is now in Bogota,” Colombia’s foreign ministry said. “In the coming hours the national government will inform of the decisions taken.”
Trump’s “drug leader” comments marked a new low in relations between Washington and Bogota, which the US president accuses of being complicit in the illicit drug trade. Petro has objected to the US military’s strikes against vessels in the Caribbean.
Trump said US financial aid to Colombia would be cut off and that details about the new tariffs would be unveiled on Monday, though it was unclear what funding he was referring to.
Colombia was once among the largest recipients of US aid in the Western Hemisphere, but the flow of money was suddenly curtailed this year following the closure of USAID, the US government’s humanitarian arm.
The oil-producing nation currently pays ten per cent tariffs on most imports to the US, the baseline level Trump has imposed on many countries.
The US is Colombia’s top trading partner, and shipments north account for 35 per cent of the South American country’s exports, according to the Colombian-American Chamber of Commerce, while 70 per cent of imports from the US are items not produced in Colombia.
Colombia’s foreign ministry has vowed to seek international support for Petro, who first rose to prominence as a senator by exposing links between right-wing paramilitary groups involved in drug trafficking and corrupt politicians, as well as for the country’s autonomy.
Petro on Sunday condemned a new bombing of a vessel that killed three people, saying the boat belonged to a “humble family” and not to the leftist National Liberation Army rebel group, as claimed by US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth in his own comments.
“Mr. Trump, Colombia has never been rude to the United States…but you are rude and ignorant to Colombia,” Petro said on social media. “Since I am not a businessman, I am even less a drug trafficker. There is no greed in my heart.”
Petro has pledged to stabilise coca-growing regions in the country through large-scale social and military intervention, but the strategy has brought little success.
Colombia, a major exporter of oil, coal, coffee, flowers, and bananas, posted a $338 million trade deficit with the US between January and July, according to the government statistics agency DANE.
Investors from the US injected $2.27 billion into Colombia in the first half of the year, according to central bank figures — about 34 per cent of total foreign investment received during that period.
(Reporting by Luis Jaime Acosta and Julia Symmes Cobb; Additional reporting by Nelson Bocanegra; Editing by Hugh Lawson and Paul Simao)
