In January, with the United States military having just attacked Venezuela and rushed off the South American nation’s president to incarceration in the US all in the name of fighting drugs, I warned that US President Donald Trump may soon use the same excuse to sic the US military on two more Latin American nations — Colombia and Mexico. Concerning Colombia, I noted that Trump was already threatening then Colombia President Gustavo Petro and launching allegations against him, saying he “has ‘got to watch his ass’ while accusing him of making cocaine and sending it into America.”
Petro’s preferred successor in the Colombia presidency was defeated in a close June runoff election. Abelardo de la Espriella, who won the election and has since August 7 been president of Colombia, is a Colombia and US citizen. De la Espriella received in the Colombia presidential race, as Trump put it, Trump’s “complete and total endorsement,” and, upon completion of the runoff election, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio congratulated De la Espriella on electoral victory and gushed that Colombia’s “best days are ahead.”
The Trump administration remains set on sending the US military into Colombia to pursue a major escalation in the drug war. But, with Trump’s guy now in power in the Bogotá capital city, the days of threatening talk against Columbia’s national leader are over. Instead, the movement of the US military into Colombia is being promoted as a joint effort of the US and Colombia presidential administrations.
Phil Stewart reported Wednesday at Reuters that US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, speaking in Panama, “floated on Wednesday the possibility of joint strikes on Colombian armed groups, as he welcomed the nation into a military-led counter-narcotics coalition after its conservative president took over last week.” Stewart further reported that Colombia’s new Defense Minister Jorge Eduardo Mora, who spoke along with Hegseth, commented that, “I think the time has arrived for the narco-terrorist cartels to confront the power and the capabilities of the entire hemisphere, led by the United States.”
This joint US-Colombia course of action fits right in with Stewart’s article having noted the following: “During his swearing-in remarks on Friday, De La Espriella vowed to ‘definitively eradicate the scourge of illicit crops’ and committed to also joining the Shield of the Americas program founded by Trump.” Shield of the Americas is a multinational military effort with a focus on fighting the drug war in the Western Hemisphere. Trump convened its first meeting on March 7 at his Mar-a-Lago Club in Florida, telling assembles leaders of Western Hemisphere nations that the coalition is purposed “to eradicate the cartels.”
As with the decades before of US foreign intervention in the name of fighting drugs, the upcoming escalation in Colombia appears destined to cause more harm than good. Nevertheless, power-hungry politicians and their special interest allies will ensure US military members march into Colombia for another drug fighting effort. This time its different? Don’t count on in. Expect the results to be more death, destruction, and impoverishment as we have seen again and again. That’s the drug war for you.
