In the end, it only took about 12 hours for President Trump’s first face-to-face confrontation with one of the United States’ closest allies in Latin America, an explosion over Columbia’s rejection of US military flights to return immigrants. illegal, to lead to a complete Withdrawal for the purpose of Trump’s threats.
It wasn’t a great contest. Colombia depends on the United States for more than a quarter of its exports. And while the details of the dispute will likely be quickly forgotten, Mr. Trump’s rapid-fire threat to impose crushing tariffs, and President Gustavo Petro’s quick surrender, are likely to embolden Mr. Trump as he contemplates how to wield the same weapon. against new targets.
There’s little mystery about who he has in mind: Denmark, whose prime minister told him Greenland was not for sale during a heated, expletive-filled conversation nearly two weeks ago, and Panama, where Secretary of State Marco Rubio is supposed to land. in a few days to demand their control of returning the Panama Canal to the United States, the country that built it 120 years ago.
Welcome to the age of what Fred Kempe, president of the Atlantic Council, a Washington think tank, characterized as the era of “more mercantilism, less free trade and more arrogance.”
Sunday’s diplomatic debacle with Colombia had elements of all three. But it was also instructive about how foreign policy decision-making happens in the Trump White House: There were no policy papers or situation room meetings to weigh options, or talk of a quiet mission to reduce tensions with an ally whose cooperation United States needs a variety of problems. This would be how a dispute over returning Colombians, deported because they were in the United States illegally, would be resolved in an ordinary presidency, whether the president was a Democrat or a Republican.
In this case, perhaps there wasn’t much need for internal debate: Colombia is not China, Russia, or even North Korea and Iran, all countries that have ways of giving back to the United States or its interests. It was therefore an easy target, and a relatively profitable place for Mr. Trump to indicate how he envisions the use of American power.
There was no such process in this case, and there was no time for such a process. It developed first on social media, with an angry post by Mr. Petro declaring that he would not allow the United States to land military planes in his country with returning Colombians. “I cannot make migrants stay in a country that does not want them,” Petro wrote, “but if that country sends them back, it should be with dignity and respect for them and for our country.”
Mr. Trump responded to Truth Social, where he posts statements before the White House Press Office (which catches up by citing truth social posts), demanding that Mr. Petro get out of his way or look at your economy. crushed. He promised to impose 25 percent tariffs on Colombian exports immediately, which would obviously affect the crude oil, coal and coffee industries. The tariffs would double if Mr. Petro did not double down on the issue within a week, Trump said. For good measure, he called the Colombian president a “socialist,” which Mr. Petro would freely admit.
What happened next was fascinating: Mr. Petro fought briefly, announcing his own tariffs on American imports and accusing Mr. Trump of trying to overthrow his democratically elected government. “You don’t like our freedom, fine,” Mr. Petro wrote. “I don’t shake hands with the scarce white ones.”
There was a lot of history here, of course. One hundred and twenty-two years ago, the United States supported a Panamanian revolution against Colombia, knowing that it would speed up the construction of the canal. It is an era that Mr. Trump continues to speak of wistfully.
Presumably, Mr. Petro looked at his chances of coming out at zero and decided it was zero. And he quickly decided his best course was to get out of Mr. Trump’s way. Military flights could resume, its Foreign Ministry announced. There was more talk about demanding that passengers be treated with dignity, but clearly that was not enforceable. The United States suspended the tariff increases before they happened, and Rubio said visa restrictions on Colombian leadership would remain until the planes actually landed.
So when the day was over, not much had changed. Petro had turned down some flights, Trump had threatened retaliation, Mr. Petro had doubled down, and the status quo had largely resumed.
But for anyone trying to figure out the next moves by the Trump administration, there were many indicators in this explosion about where things may be headed.
Start with Denmark, whose Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen had a tense and aggressive conversation with Trump just five days before he was inaugurated. Having heard his threat that she could use military or economic coercion to get her way in Greenland and the Panama Canal, she opened with ideas about how the United States could expand its existing military presence in Greenland – there is a space force base there. , and Helps exploit its considerable mineral resources. Trump was not interested in cooperation; He wanted control, perhaps ownership, and seemed happy to encourage a movement in Greenland to seek independence from Denmark to get there.
It was a remarkable exchange. Denmark is, after all, a NATO ally, and for the past month, Trump has talked about using every element of American power, economic and military, to achieve the goal of forcing it to hand over the territory. If there was ever an example of how Trump is not interested in maintaining the post-WWII “rules order” and replacing it with superpower politics, this was it.
Denmark “would have been eager to negotiate with the Americans on basing rights, resource development, Arctic security coordination, and anything else the Trump administration wanted,” wrote Ian Bremmer, who heads the Eurasia Group consultancy, he wrote Monday morning. “Greenland is now more likely to vote for independence in an upcoming referendum, creating its own security agreement with the Americans, critically undermining American relations with Denmark and, with it, the Nordic bloc.”
And then there is Panama, preparing to receive Mr. Rubio. Typically, a secretary of state’s first visit is about reaffirming alliances and looking forward to years of cooperation. Mr. Rubio’s arrival will likely include some of that, and a demand that the Panama Canal treaty be scrapped and the agreement harkens back to what Theodore Roosevelt had in mind in 1903: American control.
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