Why Washington Still Needs Colombia

For many observers of Colombia, it is hard to imagine that a former member of M-19, the guerrilla group that waged war against the state for nearly two decades, could attain the presidency. Yet in 2022, that is exactly what happened. Gustavo Petro, a former M-19 organizer who later served as a leftist opposition senator and as mayor of the capital city of Bogotá, ascended to the country’s highest office. Petro’s populist platforms and anti-elite discourse clashed with Colombia’s tradition of more centrist, consensual politics, and going into the final round of voting, his victory seemed far from assured. But his promise of far-reaching reforms resonated with Colombians who were tired of the status quo, felt excluded from the country’s economic and political life, and sought greater social justice—so much so that they elected him to be the country’s first leftist president.

Despite Petro’s populist and at times anti-U.S. rhetoric, the Biden administration has since made overtures to the new president, seeking to shore up Washington’s relationship with a country that has long been its chief partner in South America. Shortly after Petro’s victory in the runoff elections, President Joe Biden called to congratulate him. In April 2023, Biden welcomed Petro to the White House, touting Colombia as the “keystone to the hemisphere,” and he has since sent a series of high-level delegations to Bogotá. In addition to re-cementing ties with an important regional ally, the United States may be hoping to prevent Colombia from falling into China’s orbit. At present, Colombia is one of the few South American countries where Beijing has relatively minimal—albeit increasing—engagement.

But as Petro begins his second year in office, Washington’s charm offensive is yielding diminishing returns. For one thing, Plan Colombia, a security and antidrug cooperation package that has been the linchpin of the U.S.-Colombian relationship for nearly a quarter century, looks increasingly obsolete. Signed in 2000, the joint initiative helped quell Colombia’s guerrilla war and arguably prevented the country from becoming a failed state, and it has been backed by more than $12 billion in funding—by far the highest level of U.S. aid to any country in the hemisphere. But Petro has opposed Plan Colombia since its inception, and as president, he has rejected his predecessors’ rhetoric about Bogotá’s “strategic” and “special” partnership with Washington. Indeed, at the United Nations General Assembly and in other international gatherings, he has frequently criticized the plan and the U.S.-backed “war on drugs” on which it is based.

Over the past two decades, as the United States has directed its attention elsewhere in the world and drifted apart from other Latin American neighbors, Colombia has stood out as an exception. But in coming years, it is likely that this alliance, too, will be weakened by the evolving reality of the drug trade, complicated domestic politics in both Colombia and the United States, and a U.S. government that is increasingly preoccupied with other urgent global priorities. With no ready alternatives in the region, Washington may find that a cooling-off with Bogotá will further diminish its capacity to pursue its interests and policy goals in the troubled hemisphere.

REBEL WITH A CAUSE

Initially, Petro’s ambitious policy agenda generated expectations of a transformation of Colombian society and the country’s role in the region and the world. Even in Washington, where some hard-liners in the U.S. Congress were alarmed by Petro’s victory because of his guerrilla past, U.S. policymakers largely gave the new Colombian president the benefit of the doubt. Petro pledged to undertake sweeping agrarian, fiscal, health, pension, labor, and education reforms. Rather than continuing the forced eradication of coca cultivation, which failed to curb the production of cocaine, he pledged to promote legal crop substitution. He promised a radical shift from fossil fuels to clean energy. On paper, these goals are broadly supported by many Colombians, but in practice the often-chaotic Petro administration has faced multiple challenges and setbacks in following through.

There have been some bright spots. Early on in Petro’s tenure, thanks to the governing coalition he fashioned, he was able to pass a fiscal reform package aimed at expanding social development programs that had eluded previous administrations. He has managed to keep the economy on track despite the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and Russia’s war in Ukraine. And he has presided over an impressive drop in deforestation in the Amazon and nationwide, even though this can in part be attributed to armed groups enforcing logging bans.

But some of Petro’s broader aims may be out of reach. One of the central parts of his political platform has been the concept of “total peace,” which entails seeking out and negotiating agreements with armed insurgent movements and major drug traffickers. Foremost is his widely supported goal of negotiating a peace accord with the National Liberation Army (ELN), an insurgency created in 1964, but he also envisions striking deals with an array of organized crime groups, an approach that is trickier and more controversial. One such group is the so-called Clan del Golfo, which controls a significant chunk of national territory, is among the largest distributors of cocaine in the world, and today poses the gravest threat to Colombia’s security. With Petro facing both domestic and international obstacles to these plans, his capacity to make good on his vision for a revitalized Colombia may be fatally limited.

ONE STEP FORWARD, THREE STEPS BACK

As a result of his own missteps, the optimism with which most Colombians greeted Petro as president-elect in 2022 has given way to considerable pessimism. He has been politically wounded by a series of scandals, including allegations that his son, Nicolás Petro, was involved in a money-laundering scheme connected to Petro’s presidential campaign. Many Colombians are worried about Petro’s lack of understanding about the limits of presidential authority. In May, for instance, during a clash over how to handle armed groups, he incorrectly asserted on Twitter that the Colombian attorney general answered to him, when in fact the attorney general is subordinate only to the country’s constitution. Petro backed down after a public backlash and criticism in the press. When tested, Colombia’s democratic institutions work. But amid mounting problems and controversies, Petro’s popularity, both within his governing coalition and with the public, has ebbed, with his approval rating plummeting from an initial 56 percent to 33 percent by the end of his first year (although this is admittedly a familiar pattern for Latin American presidents).

More worrying than Petro’s political fate, however, is Colombia’s deteriorating security situation. Massacres and homicides have been on the rise for several years, and since Petro came to office, kidnappings have doubled and killings of social leaders and human rights activists have continued unbated. Petro’s conciliatory security policy aims to promote a climate of peace by showing goodwill toward armed groups; he has directed the country’s military and police to refrain from offensive actions. But the armed groups have refused to disarm, while security forces are hamstrung in their ability to protect ordinary Colombians. Notably, even as violent crime has gone up, the online publication La Silla Vacía reported that during Petro’s first year, confrontations between security forces and illegal armed groups have dropped by 45 percent, reflecting a laxity that heralds an increasingly dire security situation.

As Petro begins his second year in office, Washington’s charm offensive is yielding diminishing returns.

The resurgence of armed groups in Colombia can be attributed in part to more lenient rules regarding the cultivation of coca, used to make cocaine. Although cocaine production fell during the first decade of the century as a result of Plan Colombia initiatives, it began to increase again around 2014 and has reached record levels since the beginning of Petro’s term in office. The recent boom is in part the result of the previous government’s 2016 peace accord with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), the country’s largest guerrilla group: although the deal successfully disarmed the country’s largest insurgency, it also created a void that was soon filled by other drug-trafficking organizations. Over time, these criminal groups have multiplied, contributing to rampant lawlessness, violence, and higher levels of coca cultivation in rural areas.

This worrisome state of affairs has been exacerbated by Petro’s drug policy, which to date has been vague and incoherent. For example, as a result of his strategy to prioritize legal crop substitution over eradication, the latter has dropped more than 80 percent. Coca cultivation, which in the two years before Petro took office had already increased by a staggering 93 percent, rose 13 percent in 2022, setting a new record. Petro stated he would go after drug traffickers by seizing cocaine, but such busts dropped by 10 percent in his first year. To be sure, the drug challenge, fueled by steady U.S. demand, has vexed previous Colombian presidents, as well. But Petro’s failure to control coca through alternative means is especially unsurprising, given that his administration never laid out clearly how it intended to pursue a program of coca substitution. Petro’s rhetoric signaled a radical shift, but it has ultimately lacked the substance necessary for real change.

Petro likewise continues to get in his own way in the international arena. Along with keeping the United States at arm’s length, he has tried to stake out a new position as a regional and global leader. Petro worked to rally other countries in the region to his side, particularly on antidrug and climate policies. But his confrontational nature and bombastic rhetoric, geared mainly for domestic consumption, cuts against his vision of regional cooperation and integration. Blaming the United States for environmental and drug problems, for instance, plays well with his political base but is poorly received among U.S. policymakers. It is under these inauspicious circumstances that both Washington and Bogotá must work to keep their partnership alive.

WASHINGTON’S PETRO WATCH

In Washington, engagement with Colombia over the past two decades is regarded as a rare Latin American success story. Although Plan Colombia failed to achieve its stated purpose—to curb cocaine and drug trafficking from Colombia to the United States—it enabled the Colombian state to assert its authority over much of the country’s national territory for the first time in decades. The landmark 2016 peace agreement with the FARC was made possible by U.S.-backed military pressure under President Álvaro Uribe, who governed from 2002 to 2010. Security gains were undeniable; massacres, homicides, and kidnappings fell markedly. For over a decade, Plan Colombia was regarded as the crowning achievement of the relationship, generating considerable collaboration between U.S. and Colombian government agencies and creating a high degree of familiarity—even trust—that stood out in Washington’s relations in the Western Hemisphere. Eventually, though, as tensions over human rights mounted and drug trafficking increased, the initiative lost its luster and the relationship began to slacken.

Facing challenges on all sides, Petro wants to maintain friendly ties with Washington and has mostly handled the relationship adroitly. There have, however, been some rocky moments. In July, commenting on the war in Ukraine, Petro said he didn’t know “if it is preferable to support Russia or the U.S. It appears to me to be the same thing.” In the United States, he has come under fire from a small group of Congressional Republicans, many of them Cuban American, who seem to see the new Colombian president as another Fidel Castro or Hugo Chávez and threaten to cut support for Bogotá. But to date, the White House and the State Department have taken Petro’s broadsides in stride and downplayed his efforts to reduce coca eradication, negotiate with drug traffickers, and halt oil exploration.

A key goal of the Biden administration’s outreach to Petro is to enlist his help with Venezuela. Petro, the theory goes, could foster a more effective regional effort to push for negotiations between Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and the Venezuelan opposition to end the country’s economic and political crisis. In April, Petro hosted a regional meeting in Bogotá for this purpose. But the meeting was improvised and unproductive—and in any case, given his ambitions for Colombian-Venezuelan relations, it is doubtful that Petro can be counted on to press Maduro to democratize.

Petro’s desire to win the strongman’s support for his own vision of “total peace”—support made necessary by the fact that part of the ELN operates from within Venezuelan territory—trumps other objectives. For this reason, he has minimized the issue of Venezuelan migration to Colombia, despite the estimated 2.5 million Venezuelans who have taken refuge in the country. Unlike his predecessor, he has rarely mentioned the influx in his speeches at home or overseas, avoiding calling attention to the economic spiral and government repression that have forced millions to flee. Petro has, however, shown himself willing to cooperate with Washington’s efforts to control migration to the U.S. southern border. In particular, he has agreed to set up three “safe mobility offices” in Colombia to help manage migratory flows to the United States. Yet despite these occasional gestures, dealing with such a mercurial leader poses significant obstacles for building trust, the basis of a long-term partnership.

EBBING FRIENDSHIP

Apart from the specific issues of migration and coping with Venezuela, U.S.-Colombian relations are at a crucial juncture. For at least a generation, the production of cocaine and trafficking to the United States have been the driving issue in the evolving relationship between Washington and Bogotá. Today, however, the rise of synthetic drugs, particularly fentanyl, is the overriding concern in U.S. drug policy, with these new substances contributing to the 100,000 overdose deaths the United States witnessed last year alone. Although concern about cocaine has not disappeared, political attention on the drug question has shifted toward China, where ingredients for the newer drugs come from, and Mexico, where fentanyl is produced before flooding the U.S. market. As a result, although bureaucratic inertia will ensure that U.S.-Colombian antidrug operations continue and resources keep flowing, Colombia will feature much less prominently in Washington’s drug policy.

Another factor that threatens to weaken the partnership between Washington and Bogotá concerns China. To some degree, Colombia has been an exception to China’s ever deepening engagement in Latin America and the Caribbean, where over 21 countries have become a part of the Belt and Road Initiative, China’s signature massive infrastructure program. Colombia’s cautious attitude to a deeper relationship with China is in part due to Bogotá’s historically close economic ties with the United States, anchored by sustained cooperation on initiatives such as Plan Colombia, as well as a 2012 free trade pact that may soon be renegotiated at Petro’s urging to better boost Colombia’s agricultural sector. But China is only growing more aggressive in its bid to invest in Colombia; Chinese direct investments in the country tripled from 2021 to 2022, and Chinese companies have submitted winning bids on major infrastructure projects including building the Bogotá metro system. For now, Petro appears ambivalent about a closer relationship with China, and his busy travel schedule has not included a visit to Beijing. But should he follow his South American neighbors and decide to deepen economic ties with China, it would further erode the U.S.-Colombian partnership.

OPPORTUNITIES LOST AND FOUND

The main story of the Petro presidency to date has been one of lost opportunities. These include missed chances in Colombia, in the region, and in the country’s long-standing relationship with the United States. Having squandered the goodwill that accompanied his election victory, Petro has allowed a disorderly governing style and erratic personal behavior to weaken him politically and even threaten his undoing. He may try to rally his supporters before crucial regional elections in October and work to rebuild the coalition that served him well in the early months of his administration. But his record thus far suggests he will remain hobbled and increasingly isolated, preventing his administration from accomplishing much in his remaining time in office.

To its credit, the United States has continued to engage Petro and has kept the partnership on course (although embarrassingly, there has been no confirmed U.S. ambassador in Bogotá since June 2022). The Biden administration has been careful to distinguish between Petro’s rhetoric, which is often combative, and his actions, which so far have fallen within accepted bounds. But Washington’s accommodationist stance will be increasingly on trial over the next three years and beyond as trust and institutional connections erode and as deeper changes in both countries create greater distance between them.

Petro has allowed a disorderly governing style and erratic personal behavior to weaken him politically.

Although the United States may face pressures to drift from its historic engagement with Colombia, it should resist doing so. Cocaine may no longer be the overriding concern it was a quarter century ago, but its resurgent supply fuels corruption and organized crime in Colombia and elsewhere. There is also room for collaboration on new shared priorities, such as migration, economic equality, racial justice, climate change, and the transition away from fossil fuels. Ultimately, though, the success of such ventures will depend on Petro’s ability to follow through—and on the United States’ willingness to open its pocketbook.

As it stands today, Colombia is following the path of many Latin American nations, for which relations with the United States have remained reasonably cordial but become increasingly distant. Neither the United States nor any Latin American country appears to have much of an appetite for anything resembling a robust two-way partnership. U.S. policymakers are focused on building partnerships elsewhere—primarily Europe and Asia, in an effort to build bulwarks against Russia and China—and do not see the United States’ closest neighbors as particularly relevant or equipped to pursue Washington’s highest priorities.

Facing widespread political turmoil, slumping economies, and a spike in organized crime, Latin America is profoundly unsettled. And many of its leaders increasingly do not trust a more and more unpredictable and inward-looking United States, which treats the region mainly as a source of problems—drugs, migration, and Chinese influence. Washington has not only failed to manage these challenges; it has alienated leaders throughout the region in its efforts to control these issues, casting a shadow over the future of U.S.-Latin American relations. It is a shadow only darkened by Washington’s waning partnership with Colombia, once its key ally and foothold on the continent. It will be very hard to restore the relationship to its former strength in light of profound changes in both countries and current geopolitics. But with Latin America facing an uncertain future, it will be essential for Washington to maintain these existing ties and to find a new basis for cooperation with Bogotá. If it fails to do so, it could lose one of its few effective partners in a region where it desperately needs them.