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January 27, 2025. Yesterday, President Donald Trump began a trade war with Colombia after that country's president refused to permit two US military airplanes full of deportees to land in Colombia. As Regina Garcia Cano and Astrid Suarez of the Associated Press pointed out, Colombia and the US had an existing arrange for deportations under former President Joe Biden, and it accepted 475 deportation flights from 2020 to 2024, accepting 124 flights in 2024 alone. But the Biden administration used commercial and charter flights while, as national security analyst Juliette Kayam noted, Trump used a military plane that arrived unannounced. As Tim Naftali of Columbia University School of International and Public affairs explained, if a foreign country tries to land its military planes except in an emergency without an existing agreement, that is an infringement of sovereignty. Colombia rejected the military planes without prior authorization and offered the use of its presidential plane instead. Colombia also asked the US to provide notice and decent treatment for its people, an issue that had been raised and resolved in 2023 after migrants arrived in hand and foot cuffs. Colombian President Gustavo Petro noted that the US had committed that it would guarantee dignified conditions for the repatriation of migrants. The plane of migrants landed in Honduras, where Colombia sent its presidential plane to pick them up. Trump announced that Colombia's denial of these flights has jeopardized the national security and public safety of the United States and slapped a 25% tariff on products from Colombia, which include about $6 billion of crude petroleum, $1.8 billion of coffee, and $1.6 billion of cut flowers. In addition, he said, the US would revoke the visas of all Colombian government officials and all allies and supporters. He promptly deported Colombian staff members of the World bank who were working for international diplomatic organizations in the US and canceled visa appointments at Colombia's US Embassy. Rather than backing down, President Petro threatened to levy a retaliatory tariff on U.S. products. Colombia imports 96.7% of the corn it feeds its livestock from the U.S. putting Colombia in the top five export markets for U.S. corn, according to a letter written by a bipartisan group of lawmakers eager to protect that trade, led by Senator Todd Young, a Republican of Indiana. In 2023, the US exported more than 4 million metric tons of corn to Colombia, which translated to $1.14 billion in sales. American farmers cannot afford to lose such a vital export market, the lawmakers wrote, especially when access to the top US corn export market Mexico is already at risk. By this morning, the economic crisis appeared to be over, although US Visa restrictions apparently remain with prior authorization and better treatment of migrants, Colombia is willing to accept the migrant flights. The White House declared victory, saying, today's events make clear to the world that America is respected again. President Trump will continue to fiercely protect our nation's sovereignty, and he expects all other nations of the world to fully cooperate in accepting the deportation of their citizens illegally present in the United States. The administration's handling of the situation with Colombia reveals that their power depends on convincing people to ignore reality and instead to believe in the fantasy world Trump dictates. White House press secretary Caroline Levitt announced yesterday morning that deportation flights have begun. In fact, nothing is beginning. In 2024, Colombia accepted, on average, more than two US flights of migrants a week. And as immigration scholar Austin Kocher noted, everyone on this deportation flight was arrested and detained by the Biden administration. Over the past four years, Trump and MAGA Republicans repeatedly insisted that Biden had maintained open borders, while in fact what the administration did was to try to address a situation made worse by the Coronavirus pandemic. As Katie Tobin of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace explains, before the Coronavirus pandemic, Venezuela, where the economy was particularly bad under rising authoritarian Nicolas Maduro, sent migrants abroad. By 2022, 6 million Venezuelans had fled their country. By September 2024, that number was 7.7 million. South American governments welcomed the Venezuelan migrants and others, including Haitians, fleeing their country's political chaos. But as economies collapsed after the Coronavirus crisis, Tobin explains, migrant populations that had settled in South American countries were forced out. From 2019 to 2021, Colombia's per capita gross domestic product fell 4.6%, Peru's 5.3%, Ecuador's 2.8%, Brazil's 11.67%, and Venezuela's 20%. As the US economy grew by 8.38%, Canada's grew by 13.1%, and Mexico's dropped by only 0.7%. Migrants headed north in September 2021, when 15,000 Haitians who had originally migrated to Brazil arrived at the US Border with Mexico, countries throughout the hemisphere realized that they needed a new regional approach to migration. After nine months of negotiations, 21 countries announced that they had created a new migration pact for the Western Hemisphere. It provided economic support for Latin American countries that were original destinations for migrants, expanded formal pathways for immigration, and increased border security across the region. Canada and Mexico were the first countries to buy into the new agreement. The US turned next to strong ally Colombia, which agreed in March 2022, after which Vice President Kamala Harris brought on board Caribbean countries. By June 10, when the Los Angeles Declaration on Migration and protection was announced, 21 nations had signed on. UN observers were present to demonstrate their support. The Biden administration insisted that countries begin immediate action, and they did. Tobin notes that Belize, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Panama, and Peru have made sweeping new offers of legal status to hundreds of thousands of migrants already living in their countries. While Colombia has offered legal status to 2 million Venezuelans and Brazil has welcomed more than 500,000, Mexico and Guatemala have offered legal pathways to workers. Canada, Costa Rica, Colombia, Ecuador, Guatemala, Spain and the US launched a virtual platform to enable migrants to apply for admission remotely. When Mexico agreed to accept Venezuelans who had crossed into the US unlawfully, and at the same time the US announced a legal pathway for 24,000 Venezuelans, border crossings dropped 90% within a week. Biden and Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador expanded that initiative to include Cubans, Haitians, and Nicaraguans. By 2023, border arrests had fallen by about half, although Congress failed to pass a strong bipartisan measure to increase border security and fund immigration courts. Arrests fell by half again after Biden in June 2024 issued a proclamation that barred migrants from being granted asylum when U.S. officials deemed the border was overwhelmed. By the end of Biden's term, unlawful border crossings had plummeted to lows that hadn't been seen since June 2020. There are new challenges to managing migration as wars, climate change, and economic pressures push migrants out of various parts of Africa and out of China. Many of those migrants are finding their way to Latin America and from there to the U.S. the UN refugee agency estimates that 117 million people were displaced by the end of 2023. Trump won election in part by vowing to shut down immigration, and as soon as he took office, he canceled the CBP1 app, the virtual platform that allows migrants to apply for asylum. During the campaign, he vowed to deport those migrants he claimed were criminals, which many interpreted to mean he would only remove those who had committed violent crimes, which the US has always done. But in his first term, Trump's people considered anyone who entered the US Outside of immigration law to be a criminal, and this appears to be the definition his people are using now. Daily deportation raids in which U.S. immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, agents arrested a few hundred people in sweeps, began almost as soon as Trump took office. Josh Campbell, Andy Rose, and Nick Valencia of CNN reported that the federal government has flooded the media with video and photos of agents in tactical gear their vests bearing the words Police, ICE and Homeland Security as they lead individuals in handcuffs. The journalists report that this is not an accident. Agents were told to have their agency names clearly displayed for the press. The presence of television Talk show host Dr. Phil with an ice team in Chicago reinforces the sense that these arrests are designed for the cameras. So does yesterday's report by Nick Miroff and Maria Sacchetti of the Washington Post that Trump is disappointed with the sweep so far and has directed officials to ramp up arrests aggressively providing quotas for ICE field offices. Today, new Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said the department will shift to the defense of the territorial integrity of the United States of America at the southern border. Yesterday's spat with Colombia's president enabled Trump to declare victory. But Colombia has been the top US Ally in Latin America, a close partner in combating drug trafficking and managing migration. That relationship, which has taken years of careful cultivation, is now threatened. Will Freeman of the Council on Foreign Relations, a think tank specializing in US Foreign policy, posted, I can't think of many worse strategic blunders for the US as it competes with China than going nuclear against its oldest strategic ally and last big country in South America, where it enjoys a trade advantage. Trump certainly expects that because one third of Colombian exports go to the U.S. petro will be forced to back down. But Petro seems to welcome the fight and has already signaled wishes to deepen ties with China. Colombia will lose partnership on security it badly needs. Only China stands to gain from this. Indeed, China's ambassador to Colombia promptly noted that we are at the best moment of our diplomatic relations between China and Colombia, which are now 45 years old. Meanwhile, according to Ambassador Luis G. Moreno, the Trump administration has shut down 2,100 courses in the premier training facility for State Department Foreign Service officers, ostensibly because they are too associated with diversity, equity and inclusion, Moreno adds. Dismantling of a professional diplomatic corps is underway.
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Letters from an American was produced at Soundscape Productions, Dedham, MA. Recorded with music composed by Michael Moss.