📚The TL;DR📝

1. Colombia: 53 million people, home to nearly 70% of global cocaine supply, and over $10 billion in U.S. foreign aid since 2000. Historically, Washington’s closest ally in Latin America.

2. Decades of bipartisan support helped Colombia confront FARC, a communist paramilitary group that emerged from working-class political anger. 

3. The United States and Colombia responded with “Plan Colombia,” an ambitious scheme to eradicate both FARC and cocaine production.

4. Public anger eventually led to the election of Gustavo Petro, who has become a vocal opponent of American policy towards Colombia and Latin America.

5. With U.S.-Colombia relations at a nadir, cocaine production is likely to spike, and the United States will struggle to accomplish its goals on trafficking and migration in the region.

📌Colombia: An American Alliance in Free-Fall📌

“That is why, from here in New York, I ask all soldiers in the United States army not to point their rifles at humanity. Disobey Trump’s order! Obey the order of humanity!” Gustavo Petro, president of Colombia, shouted these words through a megaphone during a protest against the war in Gaza on Sept. 26, 2025. He was outside of the U.N. Headquarters in New York City, having addressed the General Assembly with a speech of similar sentiment just a few days prior. Hours later, the U.S. State Department revoked Petro’s visa, effectively banning him from the United States.

The alliance between Washington and Bogotá, once hailed as “a framework of cooperation unmatched in Latin America,” has become hostile, volatile, and personal. Colombia is the largest producer of the coca plant—whose leaves are used to make cocaine—and is responsible for nearly 70% of the global cocaine supply. This massive production, coupled with Colombia’s strategic location bordering the Darién Gap, a jungle corridor traversed by over 520,000 immigrants in 2023 alone, places the country at the center of U.S. priorities in Latin America. 

For the past century, bipartisan U.S. support has strengthened the U.S.-Colombia partnership. Since 2000, the U.S. has provided Colombia with over $10 billion in aid to halt narcotics production and dismantle the country’s Marxist-Leninist insurgent movements. But now, the two countries find themselves locked in a cycle of recrimination and retaliation at a moment when cooperation is crucial. This development may end a decades-long relationship of support and diplomacy, and further increase cocaine supply worldwide. 

The FARC Fracas

Colombia, throughout much of its early history, saw power see-saw between the right-wing Conservative Party and the centrist Liberal Party. While economic and political power was concentrated in small right-wing and centrist circles, the working class had minimal civic representation, stirring a desire to exert its influence by extrajudicial means. They turned to armed rebellion as an outlet for their hunger for change. Rural communist organizers founded the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) in 1964 as a military arm of the Colombian Communist Party.

FARC gained traction throughout the 1970s, attracting some 10,000 troops, thousands of supporters, and mountains of illicit funding. A crucial stream of funding came in the early 1980s: el gramaje, or “the grammage,” a tax system imposed by FARC on those involved in the coca market within regions under its control, yielded an estimated $70 million USD annually. By 1999, 20,000 FARC troops controlled 40% of Colombia’s territory. Cocaine production surged by nearly 20% that year. Colombia was on the brink of collapse.

The U.S. maintained a tradition of close diplomatic ties with the Colombian government amid regional instability and insurgency in the late 20th century. During the Cold War, the U.S. supported Colombia in its effort to suppress left-wing insurgent groups. However, President Ronald Reagan shifted this focus in the 1980s, fixating on joint efforts to counter cocaine production as part of the War on Drugs. U.S.-Colombia relations reached a low point in 1996 when President Bill Clinton decertified the administration of his Colombian counterpart, Ernesto Samper, over concerns that the Cali Cartel had funded Samper’s presidential campaign. But this setback was specific to Samper’s administration; when President Andres Pastrana succeeded him in 1998, Colombia’s relations with the U.S. began to recover.

By 1999, as the country teetered on the brink of collapse, Pastrana came to Clinton to ask for help. Hoping to rebuild the cooperative relationship between the United States and Colombia, Clinton was willing to give it.

Plan? Colombia

In 2000, Clinton announced the launch of “Plan Colombia,” a foreign and military aid initiative aimed at countering narcotics trafficking and armed insurgent groups. Congress appropriated a total of $1.3 billion to Colombia in the year 2000, with roughly 78% going to military aid and the remainder to economic, agricultural, and humanitarian assistance. From 2000 to 2007, the U.S. provided an average of $550 million in foreign aid annually, with one-third of that funding supporting aerial fumigation and coca eradication.

By 2015, only around 7,000 fighters remained in the paramilitary group, a substantial reduction from the estimated 20,000 insurgents 13 years prior. In 2016, the Colombian government and FARC signed a peace accord after years of negotiation and even more years of armed conflict. The United States, affirming its decades-long partnership with Colombia, supported this transition through a new deal called “Peace Colombia,” which built upon Plan Colombia but shifted more funding toward rehabilitation and rural reconstruction. 

Plan Colombia was effective in countering FARC, but its counter-narcotics efforts quickly stalled out. Even with periodic declines, coca cultivation has trended upward since the implementation of Plan Colombia—the program failed to sustainably halt output. Public frustration mounted over the lawless behavior of anti-FARC paramilitary groups and the government’s failure to tamp down on cocaine production.

Despite this mixed record, Plan Colombia would continue uninterrupted and broadly unquestioned for the next 25 years. A succession of conservative and centrist presidents, including Álvaro Uribe and Juan Manuel Santos, implemented hardline enforcement against cocaine traffickers and insurgent groups alike. Nevertheless, cracks began to spread under the surface. Left-wing parties won an increasing share of the vote through the 2010s, and shortly before the 2022 elections, they joined together in the Pacto Historico alliance. The alliance coalesced around the charismatic Gustavo Petro, a senator and former mayor of Bogotá.

Petro’s Path to Power

Born to a middle-class family in rural Colombia, Gustavo Petro has been a lifelong left-wing activist. At age 17, Petro joined M-19, a Marxist guerrilla group notorious for political kidnappings and acts of violence. M-19 demobilized in 1990, after which Petro entered national politics. He first served as a senator from 2006 to 2010, then as mayor of Bogotá from 2012 to 2015, before returning to the Senate in 2018. In 2022, Petro traded his Senate seat for the campaign trail, championing radical reform, socialism, and decoupling from the United States. His subsequent presidential victory illustrated widespread frustration with conservative leadership. Petro’s immediate predecessor, Ivan Duque, left office deeply unpopular with his constituents. Voters not only faced stark income inequality and attacks from FARC-breakoff dissident groups, but also rising cocaine production. Colombians were exasperated. The pendulum swung to Petro. 

Petro’s platform preached Colombian nationalism by calling for greater independence from the United States. On Oct. 3, 2023, Petro announced his ambitious two-fold counternarcotics strategy. The first pillar, “Oxygen,” aimed to relieve vulnerable groups such as small farmers and individual consumers from their dependence on the drug trade. By implementing regulatory protections and incentivizing the transition to legal alternatives for small-scale growers, the strategy would offer “oxygen” to groups exploited in the drug trade. The second pillar, “Apshyxiation,” aimed to destroy larger structures and players in the international drug trafficking network by enhancing interdiction capabilities and targeting large-scale cocaine production.

When Donald Trump became the 47th President of the United States on Jan. 20, 2025, he turned conventional wisdom regarding U.S. foreign policy toward Colombia on its head. Less than a week after his inauguration, Trump attempted to repatriate deported Colombian migrants by flying deportees on Air Force jets to their home country without the consent of the Colombian government. At first, Petro refused to accept the Air Force flights carrying the deportees, posting on X, “The United States cannot treat Colombian migrants as criminals.” However, after brief back-and-forth threats of tariffs, Petro reversed course. This interaction early in the second Trump administration set the tone for what was to come.

The Megaphone Heard Around The World

By September, the once-robust U.S.-Colombia relationship had obliterated. On Sept. 16, the Trump administration revoked Colombia’s “Drug Control Partner Nation” certification, claiming that the country had “failed demonstrably” to uphold counternarcotics agreements, the first decertification of this nature since 1997 under Clinton. 

On Sept. 23, Petro addressed the U.N. General Assembly, calling for the formation of an armed international group to work together to put a stop to the genocide in Gaza. He claimed, “The US government wants to harm thousands of peasants; [it] is influenced by Colombian mafia politicians.” The U.S. delegation walked out during his speech. 

The megaphone moment came days later outside of the U.N. headquarters in New York City. After protesting against the war in Gaza, the State Department revoked Petro’s visa, claiming that he “urged U.S. soldiers to disobey orders and incite violence.” On Oct. 24, the U.S. Department of the Treasury sanctioned Petro, his wife, his eldest son, and a high-ranking official within his administration, accusing them of complicity in the illicit drug trade and freezing all U.S.-based assets. 

Amid a firestorm of controversy, the United States began strikes on boats believed to be carrying illicit drugs in the Caribbean. These attacks have killed more than 80 people since early September. Petro accused Trump of murder, claiming that one of the individuals killed was innocent—a fisherman, not a narcotrafficker. 

Trump announced the end of all payments to Colombia, calling Petro an “illegal drug leader.” In response, Petro threatened to suspend all intelligence cooperation between the two countries—though neither threat has been acted on. 

🌎Why It Matters🌎

For 25 years and $10 billion in foreign aid, the U.S. invested in building Colombia into a long-lasting partner. But as of late, cocaine production in Colombia has reached unprecedented highs. 2023 saw a 53% increase in cocaine production, marking the 10th consecutive year that estimates of potential cocaine production have risen. 

Murder accusations, threats of suspended aid, sky-high tariffs, and cancelled VIP visas clutter the headlines, confirming that U.S.-Colombia relations are in free-fall. Colombia, the epicenter of global cocaine production, once worked closely with the U.S. in counternarcotics. But as the relationship weakens, so does Colombia’s ability to halt drug production. The 2023 spike in cocaine production may continue to increase as the partnership strains. 

With the United States facing significant threats and challenges in Latin America, including drug trafficking, migration, and general instability, close collaboration with Latin American countries is crucial. Colombia, however, is a challenge to the Trump administration’s efforts on all these issues. A break with Colombia will make efforts to slow migration through the Darién Gap more difficult and weaken the ability of the United States to stem the flow of cocaine from the region. 

With more supply comes more demand: more addiction and more death.