By Mutunga Tobbias / The Common Pulse/latest news /US/ Kenya/Abroad/Africa / OCTOBER2025.
When President Donald Trump vowed to intervene against drug smugglers in Colombia, it marked not just another declaration in America’s long war on drugs but a significant widening of U.S. counternarcotics operations across Latin America. What began as a campaign focused on intercepting cocaine-laden vessels at sea has evolved into a strategy that places entire governments under threat of U.S. action. Colombia, once heralded as Washington’s closest ally in the fight against narcotics, has once again become a flashpoint in the geopolitical struggle over sovereignty, security, and control of the hemisphere’s most lucrative illicit trade.
Trump’s renewed attention to Colombia did not emerge in isolation. It sits atop a decades-long legacy of U.S. involvement in the Andean region, where billions of dollars have been poured into eradication campaigns, military assistance, and intelligence operations designed to crush cocaine production. Yet, despite the immense financial and political investment, coca cultivation has surged to record highs. According to U.N. reports, Colombia remains the world’s largest producer of cocaine, and the U.S., its largest consumer market, remains desperate to stem the flow. For Trump, whose political messaging thrives on bold declarations and visible enemies, Colombia became both a symbol of failure and a stage for demonstrating American resolve.
The Rebirth of a Militarized Drug War
The Trump administration’s counternarcotics posture in Latin America began with high-profile military operations in the Caribbean and the Pacific, where U.S. Southern Command deployed Navy and Coast Guard assets to intercept drug shipments. These oceangoing missions, launched in coordination with regional partners, were designed to project power and show tangible results through drug seizures and arrests. But as the campaign evolved, it grew increasingly political.
Trump’s rhetoric shifted from attacking cartels to admonishing governments he accused of not doing enough. In this narrative, Colombia, long praised as a model of U.S.-backed anti-drug cooperation, became a convenient target for pressure. Washington began issuing stern warnings to Bogotá over its rising coca cultivation rates, implying that failure to act decisively could trigger the loss of aid or even sanctions. Behind these public statements was a strategy that blurred the lines between counternarcotics operations and geopolitical leverage.
The administration’s move reflected an old pattern in U.S. foreign policy, the use of the drug war as an instrument of influence. Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, under Reagan, Bush, and Clinton, American policymakers used anti-narcotics funding and certification processes to reward compliant governments and punish those seen as uncooperative. Trump’s approach, however, added a distinctly transactional edge. His language was blunt, his patience thin, and his tools increasingly coercive.
Colombia’s Fragile Balancing Act
For Colombia, Trump’s new tone came at a delicate moment. The peace agreement with the FARC guerrillas, signed in 2016, had created both opportunities and risks. As former rebels demobilized, vast rural areas once under insurgent control became power vacuums. Without strong state presence, these regions quickly turned into fertile ground for coca cultivation and the resurgence of criminal networks. The government in Bogotá found itself overstretched, struggling to implement rural reforms while maintaining stability.
Trump’s threats placed Colombian leaders in an impossible bind. On one hand, they needed continued U.S. support for development and security programs. On the other, they faced domestic political pressure not to be seen as Washington’s subordinates. When Trump publicly suggested that the U.S. could “take care of the problem” directly if Colombia didn’t act, it reignited old memories of American interventionism. For many Colombians, it felt less like partnership and more like intimidation.
The irony was not lost on observers. The very nation that had served as the showcase of U.S. drug policy success was now being publicly shamed by the same country that had once financed its campaigns. This exposed the deep contradictions of the war on drugs itself, a war that punishes producers abroad while failing to curb demand at home.
From Cartels to Capitals: The New Phase of U.S. Pressure
Trump’s vow to expand intervention against smugglers in Colombia coincided with a broader shift in U.S. counternarcotics doctrine. The administration began using the threat of military or economic action not only against non-state actors like cartels but also against governments. Venezuela was the most dramatic example. In 2020, the U.S. indicted Nicolás Maduro and several top officials on drug trafficking charges, labeling them “narco-terrorists.” Naval deployments followed, under the banner of anti-drug operations but with unmistakable political intent.
This blending of counternarcotics and regime-change objectives raised concerns among diplomats and analysts. By equating political opposition with criminality, Washington risked undermining legitimate law enforcement cooperation in the region. Yet for Trump, the strategy fit neatly into his broader foreign policy philosophy, one that favored pressure, spectacle, and short-term wins over nuanced diplomacy.
Colombia thus became both a test case and a proxy battlefield. The U.S. increased intelligence sharing and aerial surveillance while quietly expanding its footprint through “temporary” troop deployments and joint exercises. Officially, these actions were about stopping cocaine shipments. Unofficially, they were about reasserting U.S. dominance in a hemisphere increasingly courted by China and Russia.
The Regional Ripple Effect
Trump’s escalation did not go unnoticed in neighboring countries. Peru and Bolivia, both key coca producers, interpreted his moves as warnings. Central American nations, already struggling under U.S. pressure over migration, feared becoming the next targets of punitive rhetoric. Mexico, meanwhile, faced its own set of tensions with Washington, as Trump repeatedly accused it of failing to stop drugs at the border.
The regional dynamic became one of fear and compliance. Governments sought to avoid public rebuke by aligning more closely with U.S. priorities. The Organization of American States (OAS) became a stage for counternarcotics diplomacy, often echoing U.S. talking points about “shared responsibility” while quietly deflecting accusations of heavy-handedness.
However, the practical results were limited. Cocaine production remained steady, new trafficking routes emerged, and synthetic drugs began displacing plant-based narcotics as the dominant threat. The structural drivers of the trade, poverty, corruption, and consumer demand, remained untouched. Trump’s policy, critics argued, was not solving the problem but repackaging it in militarized form.
A Legacy of Power and Paradox
Trump’s vow to intervene in Colombia left behind a legacy both muscular and murky. On paper, U.S. operations under his watch achieved several high-profile interdictions. Billions of dollars’ worth of cocaine were seized, and dozens of traffickers extradited. Yet, beneath the headlines, the deeper reality persisted: the drug trade adapts faster than policy can contain it.
More importantly, the approach hardened perceptions of the U.S. as a hegemon imposing its will under the guise of counternarcotics cooperation. For many Latin American leaders, Trump’s stance reinforced the need for regional autonomy, for developing independent drug strategies that balance enforcement with social reform. Countries like Mexico and Colombia have since begun exploring decriminalization and alternative development as ways to escape the endless cycle of eradication and violence.
Trump’s critics argue that his policies reduced the complexity of the drug problem to a political slogan. His administration’s focus on punishment and deterrence ignored the social realities that sustain the narcotics economy. Coca farmers in Colombia, often poor and marginalized, cultivate coca not out of allegiance to cartels but because it is their only viable livelihood. Destroying their crops without offering alternatives only deepens resentment and instability.
Still, his supporters contend that Trump’s toughness was necessary, that previous administrations had grown complacent and overly diplomatic. They point to his willingness to call out Latin American governments directly and demand results as a sign of restored American assertiveness. For them, Trump’s drug war was an extension of his “America First” doctrine: if other countries failed to stop the flow, the U.S. would act unilaterally.
The Future of U.S.-Colombia Relations
In the years since Trump’s vow, the political landscape has shifted. Colombia’s government has sought to recalibrate its relationship with Washington, emphasizing sovereignty and peacebuilding over eradication metrics. The Biden administration, while maintaining many operational aspects of counternarcotics cooperation, has adopted a softer diplomatic tone, focusing more on social programs and rural development.
Yet the structural dynamic remains unchanged. The U.S. continues to see Latin America’s drug problem through the lens of national security, while regional governments struggle to balance cooperation with autonomy. Trump’s interventionist posture may have waned, but its shadow still looms large. His approach demonstrated how easily the rhetoric of counternarcotics can morph into a geopolitical instrument, and how fragile the notion of partnership can be when power is unevenly distributed.
As Colombia moves forward, it faces a dual challenge: to assert independence while maintaining crucial U.S. support, and to address the root causes of drug production without reigniting the cycles of conflict that once tore the country apart. The lesson of Trump’s vow, and the broader Latin American experience, is that the war on drugs cannot be won by force alone. It demands a reckoning with history, economics, and the human cost of policies built on fear rather than understanding.
The Drug War as a Mirror of Power
Trump’s vow to intervene against smugglers in Colombia was not just about narcotics, it was about power, image, and the projection of American will in its traditional sphere of influence. It exposed the enduring contradictions of U.S. drug policy: moralistic at home, militarized abroad, and perpetually caught between cooperation and coercion.
Latin America, for its part, continues to navigate this uneasy partnership. Colombia’s experience shows that dependency on foreign intervention comes at a cost, and that sovereignty, once compromised in the name of shared security, is hard to reclaim.
The war on drugs, in its Trump-era incarnation, may have seized ships and silenced smugglers, but it also reignited old ghosts, the ghosts of empire, intervention, and inequality. In the end, it reminded the world that the battle over cocaine is not merely about substances, but about sovereignty itself. And as long as that remains true, the fight will never truly be over.
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