"This weekend’s Colombia crisis is next week’s Honduras crisis.
BOZ (James Bosworth)
JAN 27, 2025
On the controversies over deportation flights this weekend, before Colombia, there was
Brazil.
A US military flight with 88 Brazilian migrants who were being deported was scheduled to arrive in Belo Horizonte on Saturday, but made an emergency landing in Manaus due to some plane trouble. The migrants were seen walking off the plane in handcuffs. Statements to reporters suggest the conditions on the flight were terrible. The deportees could not use the bathroom. The climate control didn’t work, leading someone to faint due to the heat. Rumors of even worse are floating around in Brazilian social media.
Defenders of the US policy say that these sorts of flights happened regularly under the Biden administration, and the way that the deportees are treated remains the same. The truth is probably somewhere in between. I doubt previous deportation flights were first class accommodations and deported criminals are almost certainly restrained. But handcuffing non-violent deportees who were not convicted of other crimes and forcing them into a military aircraft that lacks proper ventilation is certainly far worse than typical.
The Brazilian government is furious. The Brazilian public is getting angrier as they learn more.
While that controversy with Brazil was swiftly overshadowed by the much larger noisier with Colombia, the Brazil one matters. It’s at the center of the critiques that Latin American governments have about the current policy including the use of US military assets in these deportations and the treatment of their citizens.
If Lula and others in his government are holding personal grudges over this, their response will be strategic and multilateral. They are thinking about how to get this right over the course of months and years, not simply take a stand this week. That’s not an easy task, but it is the only way Brazil can effectively respond. Itamaraty correctly understands that engaging in a 12 hour Twitter war with Trump would be the dumbest way to respond to this issue.
Turning to the dumbest way to respond to this issue, Gustavo Petro is a narcissistic career opposition politician who is a social media addict who happens to now be president. Petro probably thought he was winning the online battle yesterday because, in his mind, if the world is talking about Gustavo Petro, then it’s good for him. Other Latin American presidents have tried to carefully manage their responses in the Trump era, but Petro is too much like Trump in how he engages in public and courts political controversy. This time it backfired on him. The online attention feeding Petro’s ego is bad for Colombia and Colombians. The fight will do far more damage to his country than to the United States, which will move along to the next Trump controversy soon enough.
Petro revoked the permission for deportation flights on US military planes after those planes were in the air. Trump responded with a “maximum pressure” style threat. Trump said he would impose an immediate 25% tariff, a visa and travel ban on Colombian officials, the shutdown of all visa issuances in Colombia, and implement sanctions on the country and its top officials. Colombia responded with potential sanctions of its own as well as a cryptic threat from Petro to fix the fact over 15,000 US citizens are in Colombia without a proper visa.
Last night, only hours after those public threats were made, Colombia said they had come to an agreement that included some improvements on how deportation flights would occur, and Trump’s team said Petro had given in on all terms including using military flights. As of this morning, the sanctions won’t happen and visas will resume after a brief pause. But Trump is keeping his threats in reserve if Colombia backtracks.
Credit for the deal likely goes to Luis Murillo, Colombia’s foreign minister who leaves his post later this week. There is a real issue here. It’s only a small exaggeration to say that everything the Colombian government has gotten correct about foreign policy in the past year is because of Murillo and everything they have gotten wrong is because of Petro. Laura Sarabia, the new foreign minister, is young, savvy, and much closer to Petro but doesn’t have Murillo’s experience and connections on the foreign stage. This will be a different crisis in a week.
This is far from Petro’s only crisis. The
violence in Colombia’s northeast continues and there is a real concern about how the ELN are using Venezuela to cause problems. Colombia’s success in fighting armed groups in the past has come with the help of the US military. Any US-Colombia dispute benefits the ELN, FARC and Clan del Golfo.
This weekend’s Colombia crisis is next week’s Honduras crisis. ~Bosworth"
