As the United States under the second Trump administration ratchets up deportations, escalates trade wars, and increasingly militarizes its targeting of transnational cartels, OPR’s Senior Global Politics Editor Michael Wakin sat down for an interview with former President Ivan Duque of Colombia, whose tenure from 2018 to 2022 overlapped with President Trump’s first administration.
They met in a glass conference room in the Blavatnik School of Government where Duque serves as a fellow. Duque was elected as a candidate of the centre-right Democratic Centre Party, defeating the left-wing Gustavo Petro – the current president of Colombia. Before the presidency, Duque served as a senator from 2014 to 2018 and as a representative at the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) in Washington DC for over a decade.
During the interview, Duque criticized Petro’s handling of the recent diplomatic incident between Colombia and the United States over the deportation of Colombian migrants on military planes. Duque – who has previously called Russian military aggression in Ukraine a ‘genocide’ – also disagreed with Petro’s severing of diplomatic ties with Israel last year. Duque’s assessment of Petro’s domestic agenda was no less forgiving, arguing that the current president is destroying the country’s economic fundamentals.
While Petro’s low approval ratings give credence to the criticisms levied throughout this interview, Duque’s presidency was not immune to challenges of its own. He weathered nationwide protests in 2019 and 2021, was accused of moving slowly to implement the FARC peace accord he inherited, and faced criticism for rising violence against social leaders in rural areas. The COVID-19 pandemic further complicated his presidency, though his administration received praise for its vaccination campaign and economic recovery efforts.
The contrast between the two presidents could hardly be starker: Duque, the Georgetown-educated technocrat with deep ties to Washington, versus Petro, the former M-19 guerrilla fighter turned progressive reformer. Their differing visions for Colombia’s future continue to define the country’s increasingly polarised political landscape.
The interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Michael Wakin (OPR): To begin, I’d like to ask about the diplomatic row between President Trump and President Petro at the start of the year over Petro’s initial decision to reject the repatriation of Colombia migrants and then reversed his decision under the threat of Trump’s tariffs and other economic sanctions. What lessons can we draw from this for Colombia and other countries?
Ivan Duque (ID): It’s clear that what Petro did was reckless and in some kind of way insane. It did compromise the national security of Colombia and two hundred years of bilateral relations with the U.S. The basis for why I say this is because in 2024, which was still during the Biden administration, Colombia received more than 14,000 deported Colombians from the United States. Not a word was said. And I think what the United States did was that they notified Colombia that they’re going to start the deportations again in 2025.
Colombia had said yes, that it was going to provide all the logistical support. And all of a sudden, at 3AM in the morning, Petro decides to take his Twitter account – under due influence of you don’t know what – and decides to directly engage in an attack against the President of the United States. Then, he gets a response – an institutional response from the U.S. – putting tariffs and also visa restrictions on Colombian citizens. It was a very sad moment of Colombian diplomacy. Colombia has to continue the cooperation with the United States. That also includes receiving deported Colombians that are not under any legal basis in the United States. I think it’s as simple as that.
OPR: Aside from not Tweeting out at 3AM, how would you have handled it differently?
ID: Well, during the administration, we had to deal with many deportations. It’s a fact. Each country decides what their migration policies are. We have received deported people from the United Kingdom and from other parts of the world. People that are not in a legal condition have to be deported, and we have to facilitate those deportations. Especially considering that during Petro’s administration in 2024 he received more than 14,000 deported Colombians, he could have managed this at the level that it deserves, which is at the ministry level, the Migration Authority of Colombia, and not entering into a political battle with the President of the United States under no legal basis.
OPR: Speaking of the President of the United States, you have had personal experience with President Trump during your tenure in office. How would you characterize that relationship and what do you make of him as a statesman or negotiator?
ID: All I have to say is that he was very supportive of Colombia. He supported us dealing with the migration crisis in Cúcuta. He, Secretary Pompeo, and the director of USAID at the time, Ambassador Mark Green. They were all very supportive so Colombia could handle the worst migration crisis in Latin America’s history. Second, Trump was very supportive with us in fighting terrorism and fighting narcotrafficking. All intelligence and, at the same time, offensive capacity was strengthened with the United States’ support. Third, we opened markets for Colombia and the United States during our time in office together. We also triggered U.S. foreign direct investment to Colombia in strategic sectors like energy, technology, tourism, and services.
The experience that we had together was pretty nice, pretty good. I was able to visit the White House twice, and I also had personal encounters with him in various multilateral forums. I also had bilaterals with him in the United Nations General Assembly. I think our relationship not only was strengthened, but the fact is that during my administration in 2021 – and it was already Biden who was in office – we were able to celebrate 200 years of bilateral relationship that has been bicameral and bipartisan. Even during President Trump’s administration, that bipartisanship was kept. He was a strong supporter of Colombia during the times of the pandemic where he allowed us to have access to ventilators at the time that there were many restrictions internationally. My assessment is positive from the experiences I had with him.
OPR: Regarding the second point you touched upon on fighting terrorism, one of President Trump’s early executive orders was designating six Latin American cartels as Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTOs). We have an article running in our next edition that makes the case that the current administration is borrowing from the War on Terror’s language and tactics and applying them to the War on Drugs. I’m curious if you think this is a helpful framing and, if so, are there any concerns with it?
ID: I think there’s no doubt that the Mexican cartels are terrorist organizations. They are not just drug lords or international criminals. They are, in fact, terrorist groups. They support terrorist groups. They provide safe haven to terrorist groups. They provide weapons to terrorist groups. There is a big linkage, for example, between the National Liberation Army (ELN) and the Mexican cartels. Clan del Golfo and Mexican cartels. Tren de Aragua and Mexican cartels. I don’t think they’re reframing what they are. I think they are actually using the right language by describing and declaring them terrorist groups, which also allows the US to do any offensive action wherever they are. I think that also expands the geographical scope of offensive security policy against the cartels, and I fully agree with that.
OPR: Has there been a change in perception in your country and in the region of the United States following the deportations we’ve been seeing?
ID: I don’t think the deportations are changing dramatically the way people perceive the United States in Latin America. I think there’s more confusion on the tariff-side because there was this Latin American expectation that it was going to strengthen its ties with the United States during the Trump administration, primarily since it was the Trump administration that first used the term nearshoring and nearshoring was part of economic integration. The fact that tariffs have been imposed and they have additional costs to many producers, in my opinion, is creating more uncertainty than everybody expected. I just hope this is not a structural pattern because Latin America needs to strengthen its ties with the United States.
The best way to describe it is that in the year 2000, almost 90% of Latin American countries had the United States as its number one trading partner. Now, almost 90% of Latin American countries have China as their main trade partner. I hope the U.S. sees an opportunity and, instead of using tariffs as a mechanism of persuasion, looks at Latin America for an opportunity of a more profound integration that can be a win-win and that can be an effective instrument to prevent massive migration to the southern border of the United States.
OPR: I’ve heard you use the term multidimensional poverty and discuss how its reduction needs to be sustained across political cycles, that this isn’t just limited to a single government. How would you assess, over these last three years, whether the country is on the right path towards reducing multidimensional poverty?
ID: I think Petro is destroying the base of sustainable multidimensional poverty reduction. The fact that he has destroyed the health system and many of the fundamentals of our microeconomic respect around the globe – by violating the fiscal rule, by incrementing the deficit and debt, by issuing bonds at 12% rate, and by losing the contingent credit line from the IMF – it’s something that is going to affect the way we tackle poverty. The damage that he’s producing to the Energy Provision Service and security plus the damage he has produced for housing policy is all going to have a net effect on an eventual increase in multidimensional poverty that will happen by the end of this year.
OPR: Speaking of President Petro, he made the decision last year to sever ties with Israel for committing genocidal acts in Gaza. I watched an interview where you had called Russia’s aggression in Ukraine a genocide, as well. Do you agree with Petro’s assessment in regard to Israel?
ID: I don’t. I think what he did was very stupid. I think that Colombia should have followed a historical pattern of being a supportive country of a two-state solution in the case of Israel and Palestine. Nevertheless, it was also stupid since he did not condemn what happened in October two years ago. It was the day when more Jewish citizens had died on a single day since World War II. I think the fact that he didn’t even share any solidarity with the people of Israel and Jewish people was extremely stupid.
I definitely believe that Petro breaking from a relationship with Israel demonstrates that he is clueless about the management of foreign affairs. I just hope that we can all contribute to see a solution in the Middle East that is based on the Oslo Accords of having a two-state solution. While at the same time, guaranteeing the security of the Palestinian people and, of course, of the Israeli people.