Trump claims win over Colombia in stand-off over deportation flights

Washington: The White House has claimed victory in a stand-off with Colombia over accepting flights of deported migrants from the US hours after US President Donald Trump announced “emergency” tariffs and travel bans on the South American nation.

Two military expatriation flights were not allowed to land at the direction of Colombian President Gustavo Petro, who said in a statement he would not allow migrants to be “treated like criminals” by being placed in handcuffs on military planes. “We are not anyone’s colony,” he said.

Donald Trump has lashed out at Latin American countries’ refusals to bow to his orders.Credit: AP

In retaliation, Trump ordered immediate tariffs of 25 per cent on all goods entering the US from Colombia. He said that would rise to 50 per cent in a week. He also said he would ban entry and revoke visas of Colombian government officials “and all allies and supporters” including “family members” and all Colombian nationals and cargo would be subject to enhanced screening at airports on security grounds.

“These measures are just the beginning,” Trump posted on TruthSocial. “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.”

Petro later backed down, announcing he would send a government plane to Honduras to pick up the Colombians deported by the US. He also whacked a retaliatory tariff on US imports of 25 per cent.

Colombia President Gustavo Petro is pushing back against Donald Trump.Credit: Bloomberg

Late on Sunday (Washington time), White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt confirmed Petro had “agreed to all of President Trump’s terms including the unrestricted acceptance of all illegal aliens from Colombia returned from the United States, including on US military aircraft, without limitation or delay”.

Leavitt said the tariff orders would be “held in reserve, and not signed”. But Leavitt said Trump would maintain the visa restrictions and enhanced customs inspections “until the first planeload of Colombian deportees is successfully returned”.

The tit-for-tat underscores the febrile environment surrounding Trump’s determination to conduct the largest mass deportation in US history, and the lengths he is prepared to go to in combating resistance abroad and at home.

Colombia accounts for about a fifth of all coffee imported by the US, where a latte can routinely cost $US5 ($8) plus taxes and tips. “Trump is about to make every American pay even more for coffee,” Democratic congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said. “Remember, WE pay the tariffs, not Colombia.”

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Petro had permitted the flights and had then retracted the authorisation while they were in the air.

Sonia Rosa Sifore and other anti-Trump protesters gather in Chicago to rally against his policies on the day of his inauguration.Credit: AP

“America will no longer be lied to nor taken advantage of,” he said. “It is the responsibility of each nation to take back their citizens who are illegally present in the United States in a serious and expeditious manner.”

The use of military aircraft to carry out deportation flights is part of the Pentagon’s response to Trump’s national emergency declaration on immigration.

In the past, US military aircraft have been used to relocate individuals from one country to another, such as during the US withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021, but this is the first time in recent memory that it was used to fly migrants out of the country, one US official said.

Military aircraft carried out two similar flights, each with about 80 migrants, to Guatemala on Friday. The same day, Honduras received two deportation flights carrying a total of 193 people. Brazil also condemned the “degrading treatment” of its citizens after migrants were handcuffed on a commercial deportation flight. It was the second such flight this year, and the first since Trump’s inauguration.

Colombians have emerged in recent years as a major presence on the US border with Mexico, aided in part by a visa regime that allows them to fly to Mexico easily and avoid trekking though the treacherous Darien Gap. They ranked fourth with 127,604 arrests for illegal crossings during a 12-month period until September, behind Mexicans, Guatemalans and Venezuelans. Mexico also refused a request last week to let a US military aircraft land with migrants.

Maria Mercado, who is from Colombia but arrived from Ecuador, had her immigration appointment cancelled.Credit: AP

CBS reported on Sunday (Monday AEDT) that the Trump administration was reviving an agreement with the Central American country of El Salvador to accept non-Salvadoran migrants, known as a “safe third country” deal. Such an agreement was struck during the first Trump administration but it was not implemented.

It came as Trump’s so-called czar Tom Homan gave a television interview in which he affirmed the deportation drive was targeting people convicted of crimes but included “collateral” – people who were not convicted criminals but who were in the country illegally.

“If you’re in the country illegally, you’re on the table,” he said on ABC’s This Week. “It’s not OK to violate the laws of this country.”

Homan said arrests and deportations would steadily increase but his agency, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, would need tens of thousands more beds to house people temporarily before they were put on planes and deported.

Workers assemble temporary shelters in preparation for mass deportations at the US-Mexico border in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, on Friday.Credit: Bloomberg

One option was to set up “soft-sided facilities”, essentially tents, near major cities where raids took place. Either way, it would be expensive. “Congress needs to come to the table quick and give us the money we need to secure that border,” Homan said.

Immigration raids began in Chicago on Sunday, about a week after leaks indicated ICE was planning a show of force in that city as soon as Trump took power.

Chicago is a so-called sanctuary city in which its Welcoming City Ordinance means police do not document immigration status and nor do they share information with federal immigration authorities.

ICE said it was conducting “enhanced targeted operations [in Chicago] to enforce US immigration law and preserve public safety and national security”.

With Reuters, AP

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