{"id":7113,"date":"2025-11-04T16:27:27","date_gmt":"2025-11-04T16:27:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/2025\/11\/04\/us-is-yet-to-follow-through-on-trump-promise-to-halt-all-payments-to-colombia-as-rubio-stresses-importance-of-relationship-cnn\/"},"modified":"2025-11-04T16:27:27","modified_gmt":"2025-11-04T16:27:27","slug":"us-is-yet-to-follow-through-on-trump-promise-to-halt-all-payments-to-colombia-as-rubio-stresses-importance-of-relationship-cnn","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/2025\/11\/04\/us-is-yet-to-follow-through-on-trump-promise-to-halt-all-payments-to-colombia-as-rubio-stresses-importance-of-relationship-cnn\/","title":{"rendered":"US is yet to follow through on Trump promise to halt \u2018all payments\u2019 to Colombia as Rubio stresses importance of relationship – CNN"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

More than two weeks after President Donald Trump said he would halt \u201call payments\u201d<\/a> to Colombia, there has not been any interruption to the assistance, even after the administration sanctioned the country\u2019s President Gustavo Petro accusing him of playing a \u201crole in the global illicit drug trade.\u201d <\/p>\n

There is no comprehensive ongoing interagency review of all the US assistance programs to Colombia being carried out, US officials said. They pointed to a strong country-to-country relationship, built on decades of investment and singled out Petro as the biggest impediment to shoring up the joint efforts to tackle illicit drug production and trafficking inside the country. <\/p>\n

Days after Trump\u2019s social media post deeming Petro a drug trafficker and calling for a cutting of all payments and subsidies to the country, there was an interagency meeting planned with all of the Cabinet heads to discuss US support to Columbia, US officials said. But that meeting was canceled for unknown reasons and has not been rescheduled. <\/p>\n

The axing of the inter-agency meeting meant that Trump\u2019s national security adviser and Secretary of State Marco Rubio \u2013 who has been instrumental to the administration\u2019s overall policy approach to the region \u2013 was again left as the most influential voice in the president\u2019s ear in shaping the policy. Rubio\u2019s staff began working with the Treasury Department to quickly put sanctions on Petro into place, sources said. <\/p>\n

Rubio, following Trump\u2019s initial Truth Social post, publicly cited the \u201cexcellent\u201d US-Colombia relationship, founded on strong partnership. <\/p>\n

When asked about the status of the policy, a senior administration official highlighted to the country\u2019s difficulty tackling drug trafficking under Petro\u2019s leadership, and pointed to a review of US assistance at the presidential level. <\/p>\n

\u201cDespite billions of US taxpayer dollars invested in Colombia\u2019s counterdrug efforts, cartels are thriving under President Petro\u2019s failed policies. President Trump is carefully reviewing every program and only investing in projects that show clear value to protecting US citizens,\u201d the official said. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe politics of Colombia are not actually reflected by the current president,\u201d Rubio said as he prepared to head to Asia with Trump. \u201cOur problem with the current president, in addition to his behavior, which has been erratic and counterproductive, is that in fact he is not cooperating on our counter-drug, and we felt that was best addressed at the individual level.\u201d <\/p>\n

Rubio\u2019s remarks came as a relief to US officials who had been privately hoping that the administration would climb down and draw a distinction between penalizing the country and targeting the actions and bellicose rhetoric of the president. <\/p>\n

Rubio went on to say that the targeting of Petro \u2013 whom he called a \u201chostile foreign leader\u201d \u2013 is \u201cseparate\u201d from any effort to punish the joint efforts at the working level between the two countries, which the US has invested in for decades. <\/p>\n

\"President<\/picture> <\/div>\n

While the administration has pointed to both Colombia and Venezuela as driving the drug trade, their approach to tackling the problem in each country greatly differs because of contrasting diplomatic histories. Tough sanctions have been imposed on Venezuela by both Republican and Democratic administrations given a rupture in diplomatic relations after the country\u2019s National Assembly declared Nicol\u00e1s Maduro was not the country\u2019s legitimate leader in 2019, which was a position the US backed. <\/p>\n

And, in 2024, the US accused Maduro<\/a> of stealing the country\u2019s election. <\/p>\n

Meanwhile, US-Colombia relations remain intact despite tensions at the top. Trump administration officials have also drawn up plans for strikes inside Venezuela<\/a>, while there are no plans for the same kind of action inside Colombia. <\/p>\n

Trump administration officials are keenly aware of the political calendar in South America\u2019s largest country: Petro\u2019s presidency will end next year as he is constitutionally barred from running for a second term in the 2026 presidential election. <\/p>\n

\u201cOur relationships with the people of Colombia, the economic sector of Colombia, the majority of people in politics in Colombia, and their institutions, in particular their defense institutions, are strong and enduring, and they\u2019re going to be strong and enduring long after this individual is no longer the president there,\u201d Rubio said. <\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s anger towards Petro comes after the Colombian leader has taken on the US president very personally in addition to harshly criticizing the administration\u2019s drug war and its support for Israel. US officials were stunned and angry when Petro joined pro-Palestinian protests in New York in September and called on US soldiers to \u201cdisobey the orders of Trump.\u201d It prompted the US to revoke Petro\u2019s visa<\/a>. <\/p>\n

But days later, back in Colombia, the left-wing leader doubled down. <\/p>\n

\u201cIf Mr. Trump keeps being complicit in the genocide, as he is up to today, he deserves nothing but jail, and his army should not obey him,\u201d Petro said in Bogota. <\/p>\n

Petro\u2019s hostile stance towards Trump continued as the US drug boat strikes in the Caribbean have continued at a steady pace<\/a> for the last two months. After one strike he accused the US of murdering a Colombian fisherman, fueling tensions and ultimately triggering Trump to declare that the US would halt payments to the nation. <\/p>\n

CNN has reported that at least one US military strike in the Caribbean over the last two months targeted Colombian nationals on a boat<\/a> that had left from Colombia, according to two people briefed by the Pentagon about the strikes. <\/p>\n

The \u2018failures and incompetence\u2019 of Petro <\/h2>\n

When the US rolled out sanctions against Petro and two of his family members in recent weeks, Rubio also officially decertified Colombia as a partner in combatting drug trafficking. But the State Department\u2019s language announcing the decertification made clear that US support for the country\u2019s institutions are expected to endure. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe remain steadfast in our support for Colombian security forces, its justice sector, and departmental and municipal officials, and we will continue to partner with them in our joint efforts to combat drug trafficking,\u201d the State Department announcement said. \u201cToday\u2019s decision is not a reflection on these institutions but rather the failures and incompetence of Gustavo Petro and his inner circle.\u201d <\/p>\n

The senior administration pointed to the sanctioning of Petro and his family as a Trump decision after the Colombian president failed to strengthen efforts to tackle the drug problem. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe decision to impose sanctions on Petro and his family was ultimately made at the Presidential level, as is every action. President Trump made it clear that Colombia is \u2018failing demonstrably\u2019 to uphold its drug control responsibilities, and Petro has since doubled down in defense of his failed policies,\u201d the official said. <\/p>\n

Some US foreign assistance to the country had already stopped after the destruction of the US Agency for International Development (USAID) early in Trump\u2019s second term. However, the US has continued to provide funding from the State and Defense departments, including on counternarcotics. The US has provided about $210 million in assistance to Colombia this fiscal year, including about $31 million in agricultural support, according to data<\/a> from the US Department of State. <\/p>\n

While US officials believe that the strategy to target Petro instead of the whole of Colombia\u2019s security institutions is settled for the time being, they warn that things could always quickly change. <\/p>\n

Speaking a day after Rubio last month, Sen. Lindsey Graham said that Trump believes that both Venezuela and Colombia \u201chave been safe havens for narco-terrorists for too long.\u201d Graham added, during his CBS interview, that Trump said there were plans to brief members of Congress after his trip to Asia \u201cabout future potential military operations against Venezuela and Colombia.\u201d <\/p>\n

The US has been working to establish the close relationship it has with Colombia since the late 1990s. The Clinton administration launched Plan Colombia in 2000, which was a $1.3 billion program primarily to support the military and security forces\u2019 fight against growing and trafficking narcotics. <\/p>\n

But before that period in 1997 the US had cut off assistance to Colombia and decertified it as partner in combatting drug trafficking. Many reflected that the action did not produce the intended results. <\/p>\n

\u201cUS officials concluded that we actually did more damage to ourselves by cutting off assistance to Colombia than actually punish Ernesto Samper,\u201d said Juan Gonzalez, a former NSC official focused on the Western Hemisphere during the Biden administration who is currently a fellow at the Georgetown Americas Institute. <\/p>\n

The US support to the Colombian police was robust before that cutoff: helping pay for judicialized wiretaps, training police and vetting them. Gonzalez said that the cutoff in assistance during that period of time limited the US Department of Justice\u2019s ability build cases against the cartels inside of Colombia. <\/p>\n

Experts say that today\u2019s continued funding to Colombia\u2019s security and defense forces \u2013 which includes ongoing intelligence sharing between the two nations \u2013 is critical to achieve the administration\u2019s own goals for fighting drug trafficking. <\/p>\n

Elizabeth Dickinson, the International Crisis Group\u2019s senior analyst for Colombia, said the US support on defense is \u201creally, really significant.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re talking about two militaries that are deeply integrated and cooperating, and they work more closely together, I think, than any other country that the US works with that\u2019s not in NATO,\u201d she told CNN. \u201cWe\u2019re talking about sort of an institutional relationship, sharing of intelligence, sharing of capabilities, day to day collaboration on logistics, operations.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cIf that were to go by the wayside,\u201d Dickinson said, \u201cthe capability of the Colombian security forces would be debilitated significantly\u201d at a time when the country is facing major security challenges. <\/p>\n

And if intelligence sharing were to be cut, it would leave the US \u201cflying blind,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n

\u201c85% of all actionable intelligence that the US uses to interdict drugs in the Caribbean comes from Colombia,\u201d Dickinson said. <\/p>\n

\u201cIf you are not sharing humint (human intelligence), electronic intel on shipments, routes, organizations, schedules, methods \u2013 you\u2019re cutting off what\u2019s needed to do the stated thing you want to do \u2013 stop the flow,\u201d a former US diplomat who worked on the issue told CNN. <\/p>\n

Another former US diplomat who worked on the issue said cutting the security funding would be \u201ccutting one\u2019s nose to spite one\u2019s face.\u201d <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

More than two weeks after President Donald Trump said he would halt \u201call payments\u201d to Colombia, there has not been any interruption to the assistance, even after the administration sanctioned the country\u2019s President Gustavo Petro accusing him of playing a \u201crole in the global illicit drug trade.\u201d There is no comprehensive ongoing interagency review of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7114,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7113","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7113","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7113"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7113\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7114"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7113"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7113"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7113"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}