Elections have consequences. The country was still less than a week into the second presidency of Donald Trump, and yet got illustrations of what could (and probably will) happen when the rubber of two of his signature policies meets the road.
Over the weekend, the Trump administration conducted its first roundups of (alleged) undocumented immigrants, focusing on Chicago, as expected. Then, these folks were put on planes to be "returned" to their home countries. As we note above, and as we've written previously, there is absolutely no guarantee that these countries will accept planefuls (planesful?) of people who left there, and who might not have ever lived there in the first place.
As it turns out, we (and countless others) were right. Two of the deportation flights this weekend carried a group of (alleged) Colombians, who were to be dumped in Bogotá. Except that, before the dumping could take place, Colombian president Gustavo Petro said that he would not accept deported Colombians until the U.S. starts treating them with respect, and so denied access to the two planes.
This infuriated Trump, of course. He does not like to be told "no," especially by someone with brown skin. So, the White House announced that if the Colombian government did not fall into line, it would be hit with heavy-duty tariffs. On his boutique social media platform, he implied the tariffs would commence immediately, but White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said that they would only happen if Colombia did not yield promptly. Who knows which is correct. In any event, the tariffs, when and if they are imposed, will start at 25% for all goods in Week 1, and will increase to 50% for all goods in Week 2. There will also be a bunch of other punitive measures, like a travel ban on trips between Colombia and the United States.
Will Petro back down? It's certainly possible. The Trump administration has many ways to put pressure on him and his administration. Further, Petro's declaration was not "we will accept no returnees," it was "we won't accept them unless they are treated with dignity." That's pretty squishy, and leaves the Colombian President a lot of room to back down while still saving face. It is also the case that both Mexico and Guatemala have already refused to accept planes full of returnees, and then ended up backing down. Even if they might balk when the numbers of people are in the thousands (or more), they decided not to die on the hill of "less than 200 people." The flights to Colombia carried a similar number of people (about 160).
All of this said, there are also indicators that Petro might hold firm. His tone has been pretty defiant so far; most notably, he warned Trump that Colombia is "not anyone's colony." We are hardly experts in Colombian politics, but we suspect that going toe-to-toe with the leader of the most powerful nation in the world will not be a bad thing for Petro's approval ratings. He has also ordered retaliatory tariffs, equal to whatever tariffs are imposed by the United States. And Colombia is a far-from-ideal opponent in a trade war. It receives more goods from the United States than it sends, such that the Colombian tariffs will hurt American businesses more than the American tariffs will hurt Colombian businesses. On top of that, while Colombia does not send all that much product to the United States, it does send a couple of things where higher prices would be noticeable: a sizable chunk of America's coffee, and a sizable chunk of America's cut flowers (Valentine's Day is coming up!). Would America go to war over hot caffeinated beverages? There is some precedent on this, albeit from 1773.
Whatever happens with Colombia (and late yesterday Petro backed down and agreed to accept the flights), it remains the case that Trump v2.0 was not even a week old, and: (1) the practical problems of his deportation plans were being laid bare, and (2) everyone got a reminder that tariffs and trade wars are messy, and are not the "simple" fix that he portrayed them to be on the campaign trail. Governing is hard! (Z)