ON SEPTEMBER 15, the US government of Donald Trump formally accused Colombia of failing to act sufficiently on anti-drugs programmes, the first time the US has “decertified” Colombia since the mid-1990s.

While the US has not yet implemented sanctions against what is traditionally one of its closest allies in Latin America, the move appears designed to pressure the Colombian government to more closely align to US interests.

The announcement came despite the Gustavo Petro administration intensifying efforts to tackle rising production and implementing new strategies that target international trafficking routes.

Defence Minister Pedro Sanchez reported that, under Petro, seizures of cocaine have increased by 8 per cent and destruction of laboratories by 21 per cent, while over 3,000 members of illegal groups have been arrested.

Furthermore, according to Petro, dozens of soldiers and police officers have died in anti-drugs operations. “If there’s anyone with the iron will to combat drug trafficking, it’s Colombia,” he said.

A recent report by the United Nations Office on Crime and Drugs found that Colombian production of coca — the base ingredient of cocaine — increased by 10 per cent between 2022 and 2023.

With the vast majority of cocaine production catering for North American and European consumers, President Petro has called for those countries to do more to reduce demand at home, while criticising longstanding policies for having devastated Latin American societies.

Previous policies of militarisation and aerial spraying of chemicals such as the US-made glyphosate had extremely damaging impacts on the Colombian environment and rural populations, especially small farmers, while making little dent in production.

Glyphosate, the principal chemical in aerial spraying, is produced by US corporation Monsanto. In 2015, Colombia’s Constitutional Court prohibited aerial spraying due to the immense harm caused to natural resources, animals and people by the chemicals used.

However, Colombia’s hard-right Ivan Duque government (2018-22), closely aligned to the first Trump administration, sought to reintroduce aerial spraying and continued forced eradication programmes, provoking tensions with rural communities that frequently saw soldiers attack protesting peasant farmers.

Trump did little to dispel the notion that forcing the resumption of hard-line eradication policies was a motive in the decertification, saying he would “consider changing this designation if Colombia’s government takes more aggressive action to eradicate coca and reduce cocaine production and trafficking.”

Eradication has previously gone hand in hand with the militarisation of the state’s response to drugs cultivation. From the 1990s, the US provided extensive military aid to Colombia ostensibly to finance anti-drugs operations. However, subsequent research found that much of the funding was used to fuel counterinsurgency operations against guerilla movements amid a surge in state human rights violations.

In 2022, Colombia’s Truth Commission, set up in the 2016 peace agreement, concluded that the US government continued providing military aid even though it was aware that the Colombian army was committing atrocities against civilians, including killings of trade unionists and community leaders. It is this brutal legacy that the Petro government has sought to overcome by using a different approach.

This is evident in the 2016 peace agreement, which states that drugs policy must “enshrine human rights and public health” and provide special treatment, including technical and financial support, to the “weakest link” in the drugs-trafficking chain (the cultivators) to allow coca farmers to transition to legal alternatives.

The agreement envisioned voluntary crop substitution programmes and other measures that would in effect remove the incentives to cultivate coca, but these have been heavily affected by the Trump administration’s cutting of USAid, which funded many of these programmes.

The decertification plays to Colombian domestic politics, where Petro’s Historic Pact coalition faces elections next year. The Colombian far right has met the decertification decision with glee. Moreover, it has returned the favour. Shortly after being decertified, the right-wing dominated Colombian Senate formally voted to contradict the government’s official position by recognising the existence of the ostensibly Venezuela-based Cartel de Los Soles (Cartel of the Suns) and categorising it as an international criminal organisation and a threat to Colombia.

This position is in marked contrast to the Colombian government’s official position (based on reports from intelligence services) that, in Petro’s words, “the Cartel of the Suns doesn’t exist; it’s the far right’s fictitious excuse to overthrow governments that don’t obey them.”

The US has claimed, without providing evidence, that Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro supports this supposed organisation, thereby justifying its hawkish policy towards Venezuela, whose government the US has not recognised since 2019.

Under Trump, the US has intensified aggression towards Venezuela, recently bombing two Venezuelan boats that it claimed were transporting drugs, again without evidence. The Petro administration has refused to meddle in its neighbour’s affairs, citing respect for national sovereignty. This is in sharp contrast to the Duque government, which collaborated in Washington’s pursuit of regime change in Venezuela.

The US decision to decertify Colombia opens the door to potential sanctions, cuts to aid and US visa restrictions for Colombian government officials, the latest sign of growing tensions between the two governments following Trump’s return to office.

In August, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and other Florida-based Republicans blasted the Colombian justice system over the guilty verdict against far-right former president Alvaro Uribe for witness tampering and bribery.

In March, the US threatened sanctions on Colombia after the Petro government refused to receive a plane carrying deportees from the US, with an agreement subsequently reached for Colombia to allow the plane to land.

As Colombia enters campaign season ahead of the May 2026 presidential election, the US decision to decertify Colombia in the war on drugs plays into the hands of its allies on the political right and increases the challenges facing the country’s first progressive government.

Nick MacWilliam is trade union and programmes officer at Justice for Colombia, which works with the British and Irish trade union movements and parliaments in support of human rights and peace in Colombia.