Donald Trump announces series of sanctions against Colombia, including 25% tariffs

US President Donald Trump announced on Sunday that he has ordered a series of sanctions, including tariffs against Colombia, in retaliation for Bogota’s decision to turn away military planes carrying migrants deported by the United States.

A migrant is not a criminal and must be treated with the dignity that a human being deservesdeclared on X the Colombian President Gustavo Petro, who confirmed having turned back the military planes which transported the nationals.

We will welcome our nationals on civilian planes, without treating them like criminalshe added.

Donald Trump said on his network Truth Social that he had ordered decisive emergency retaliatory measures in reaction to the decision of the left-wing Colombian president Gustavo Petro of not allowing two repatriation flights from the United States with a large number of illegal criminals on board to land in Colombia.

These include 25% taxes on all Colombian goods entering the United States, which will be increased to 50% in a week, as well as a ban on entry into the United States and a revocation visas for Colombian government officials, their allies and supporters, he said, despite the free trade agreement between the two countries.

This set of sanctions also includes reinforced inspections upon entry for all Colombian nationals and all goods coming from this country for reasons of national securitysaid the American president.

These measures are just the beginninghe warned, accusing the Colombian government of avoiding its legal obligations to accept the return of criminals that Colombia forced the United States to welcome.

For its part, the Colombian presidency announced that it would send its own plane to the United States to facilitate the dignified return of nationals who were due to arrive in the country this morning by deportation flights.

It was not immediately possible to determine whether this announcement was before, after or simultaneously with the sanctions ordered by the American president.

A source at the Colombian presidency assuredAFP that the United States had not followed the usual procedure followed in these cases [de rapatriement, NDLR] between the two countries.

The largest deportation program in American history

Donald Trump has promised to launch the largest deportation program in American history and the White House boasted this week of the arrest of hundreds of illegal criminal migrantsemphasizing that they had been expelled by military planes rather than civilian ones, as was the case previously.

Since Mr. Trump’s inauguration on January 20, the United States has not yet carried out expulsions to Colombia, but it has done so to Guatemala and Brazil.

The director of the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Tom Homan, said Sunday on the channel ABC that migrants could be expelled to a third country if their country of origin refused to welcome them.

On Saturday, it was Brazil which demanded explanations from Washington for the degrading treatment Brazilian migrants in an irregular situation deported by the United States aboard a plane that arrived in Manaus the day before.

According to Brasilia, 88 Brazilians were on board this plane.

During this flight, they didn’t give us water, we were tied hand and foot and they didn’t even let us go to the toiletdeclared to theAFP Edgar Da Silva Moura, a 31-year-old computer scientist, arrived in Brazil on this flight after seven months of detention in the United States.

It was too hot, some faintedhe added.

According to Brazilian Minister for Human Rights Macaé Evaristo, the plane was also carrying children with autism or a disability who have experienced very serious situations.

The Brazilian Justice Ministry ordered US authorities to immediately remove the handcuffs when the plane landed, denouncing the blatant disregard for fundamental rights of its citizens.

A Brazilian government source highlighted Friday atAFP that this expulsion had no no direct relationship with the operation against illegal immigrants launched by the new Trump administration but that it was part of a bilateral agreement between Brazil and the United States dating from 2017.