“The U.S. cannot treat Colombian migrants as criminals,” Petro wrote. Petro said even though there were 15,660 Americans without legal immigration status in Colombia, he would never carry out a raid to return handcuffed Americans to the United States. “We are the opposite of the Nazis,” he wrote, in a jab at Trump. Mexico also refused a request last week to let a U.S. military aircraft land with migrants.
I hope the rest of the world keeps standing up.
Colombia has nothing to lose. The country is already in the black list for narco traffic. They suffered political meddling from the US in the 70s/80s. What next? Invasion? The cartels would be the first to pick up arms to fight back.
I’m not looking for perfect. I’m looking for people saying fuck you to our newly installed dictator.
I would beg to differ. We have a lot to lose. We get millions of dollars for our armed forces and anti drug forces to fight the guerrillas (narco terrorists). If Petro keeps pushing, Trump could take that away. We are going through an increase of violence in the Catacumbo region. That means investors are already nervous. This issue with the US government could affect our economy even more. As always innocent folks will get caught in the middle of the armed conflict and any terrorist acts. We also have a ton of export trade with the US obviously starting with coffee, but lots of other industries (flowers, cacao, fruits, etc.)
Anyway, we could get fucked if Petro and Trump can’t work things out. I don’t expect they will, since they both behave like children.
If every country could come up with a way to personally annoy him (refuse to give away their largest territory, build taller buildings all around his hotels, call him a silly name, etc.) all the tariffs would essentially cancel each other out. If everything’s tariffed, nothing’s tariffed.
Unfortunately they’ve backed down already: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/26/world/americas/colombia-us-deportation-flights.html?unlocked_article_code=1.sU4.SJeu.KLeSKsinK61Z
Nobody’s ever gonna trust the US ever again after Trump. Guy just thinks he can bully entire countries to his will.
It’s a showing of everything that’s wrong with american exceptionalism…
That we elected him twice, not even consecutively, means that we can effectively never be trusted in our current state. Even if a psychopath leader is voted out, the American people are stupid enough to vote him back in once our goldfish memories fade.
May Europe and Latin America find their strength to be the democracies the world needs. The US, always a flawed example, can no longer be relied on even in matters of self-interest.
Even if a psychopath leader is voted out, the American people are stupid enough to vote him back in once our goldfish memories fade.
Or a different psychopath leader doing and saying the exact same things, but: “The Republican party have learned their lesson, they’ve changed!”
The way Nixon screwed up South Vietnam back in the 60s kind of indicated how the US puts excessively too much power in the hands of its presidents and result in random foreign policies
The random policies is the thing for me.
Talking (and sometimes going through with it) about pulling out of random international agreements and organisations like the Paris climate agreement and WHO. Then talking about invading other countries (including allies) and imposing tariffs on everything and everyone.
Also, both times that he got in, it seems like he had the previous administration’s achievements as his todo list for things to undo.
It’s like dealing with a whole new country every four or eight years.
Guy just thinks he can bully entire countries to his will.
He leads the US. He was handed the most powerful military in the world and one of the most influencial economies.
He absolutely can bully whomever he wants.
Apparently Colombia and Mexico disagree, and they’re not even particularly powerful. Sounds more like the US is all bark, at the moment.
For a while. Until the rest of the world decides to not subsidize US deficits any more by using the dollar as the reserve currency.
He forgot the tagline to actually affecting American exceptionalism as a goal:
“Speak softly and carry a big stick”
Doing this bombastic stuff just makes him / the government look weak.
Note that I’m not subscribing to American exceptionalism, but describing past efforts to achieve / demonstrate it.
Trump speaks biggly and carries a soft stick.
Trump thinks tariffs are some great threat and yeah they cut into US imports but countries will just export to other countries instead. Meanwhile the US implodes from lack of goods since nobody can afford to pay the tariffs. The only thing Trump is going to achieve is accelerating this coming recession into a full blown depression.
Yup. Biden had just started to return stability and reassure allies, even with one arm tied behind his back for his entire term, just so that Trump can fuck everything up again. I hope a true American ally sees him for the threat he is and we have an Ebrahim Reisi situation
Oh no! Don Jr. will pay his snow 25% more!
Columbia imposed 50% tarrifs on all US goods.
A lot of technology goods. Which basically means China, which was already doing a lot of their manufacture, wins out. China is going to be moving all in on the US international market as it continues to ramp up this way, and the US will be left increasingly alone when it is eventually forced to aid Taiwan in its defense.
If it comes from China, it won’t have a tariff. That’s why those tariffs won’t work in the US. We will just work with “other vendors” who eventually are just China, with extra steps (and cost). I can’t think of much that the US exports, besides weapons, that can’t be bought somewhere else.
The only one suffering is the USA. The entire world does not need us, and most of them are sick of our shit.
The cherry on top is Trump rescinding the CHIPS act which was supposed to bring more silicon electronics manufacturing to the US, meant to make our microchip supply more resilient. Not only is it cutting off one’s nose to spite one’s face, it’s also shooting ourselves in the foot (and then blaming Woke when the obvious consequences come knocking home).
and the US will be left increasingly alone when it is eventually forced to aid Taiwan in its defense.
The US has recently convinced TSMC to open latest-process fabs in the US so that soon it won’t have to do that. Within a few years the US’s military policy in the event of a invasion from mainland China is going to shift from defending Taiwan to bombing TSMC ourselves and then leaving them to the wolves.
U.S. goods exports to Colombia in 2022 were $20.8 billion, up 24.2 percent ($4.1 billion) from 2021 and up 27 percent from 2012. U.S. goods imports from Colombia totaled $18.5 billion in 2022, up 40.3 percent ($5.3 billion) from 2021, but down 25 percent from 2012.
20 billion. So, like the budget of any of our tech companies. I think they will be just fine.
Me, on the other hand, really enjoy coffee. So this is gonna suck.
