Cooperate for your good: why the clash with Petro is a Trump message for all world leaders

In addition to the 25% tariffs they offered to impose, Trump said that the United States would introduce a travel ban and would “immediately” revoke the visas to Colombian government officials, as well as their allies and supporters.

At the last hours of Sunday, however, the Petro government announced that it had overcome the “Impasse“With the White House and declared that he would accept to receive migrants deported by the United States.

During his first week in office, the US president seemed to prioritize migration executive measures over commercials, even if the latter were a key campaign promise.

To emphasize that point, for the first time the president used tariffs to punish a country that, in his opinion, did not support the new hard line migratory policies of the United States.

On a day when Trump had no planned public appearances (he is in his Miami resort, after having played golf in the morning), the president decided to give an example with Colombia.

And with this, Trump is sending a warning to the allies and the adversaries of the United States equally: if they do not cooperate with the United States, the consequences will be severe.

Although finally the Petro government accepted the terms of deportations after the president criticized his American counterpart in social networks, incoming officials have indicated that the United States immigration policy will require looking beyond the border with Mexico.

The Trump candidate for Undersecretary of State, Christopher Landau, has long sustained that “working with other countries to stop those migratory flows” must be a “global imperative of US foreign policy.”

However, Sunday’s dispute could make work together.

Every year, tens of thousands of migrants from around the world, from India to China, go to the United States after landing in South America and traveling through the Darién cap, a key point in the north of the border with Colombia , and share with Panama.

It is a dangerous trip, in which migrants usually face the presence of criminal gangs.

United States retaliation measures could make Trump government work with Colombia on this issue.

Petro alluded to this in his response to Trump’s actions, pointing out that if conversations about migration management through Darién are suspended, “illegal activities will increase.”

These comments could be interpreted as an evening threat that more undocumented migrants will come.

Petro hastened to say that his country would not reject the deported Colombian citizens of the United States, only that they should receive a “dignified treatment.” He even offered the use of his presidential plane as a means of alternative transport.

However, the Colombian president was forced to accept the terms of deportations, after retracting in his position to respond to the United States with the implementation of tariffs similar to American products imported to Colombia.

Although it was a Sunday of great drama, this sudden diplomatic confrontation was resolved.

In any case, tariffs are proof of will. And Trump showed that this would be just his first movement.

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