De la Espriella says Colombia will join the US-led ‘Shield of the Americas’ on August 7
De la Espriella, who received Trump’s electoral backing, will come to power with rhetoric aligned with the White House on an iron-fist approach to organized crime and immigration
Colombia’s president-elect, Abelardo de la Espriella, said on Tuesday that the country will join the Shield of the Americas, the US initiative against drug cartels, on August 7, when he takes office in place of Gustavo Petro. From August 7, Colombia will be part of the Shield of the Americas. Colombia will no longer be governed by a government complacent toward narcoterrorism; we will move to combat it as it deserves, he wrote on the social network X, in response to a congratulation from US War Secretary Pete Hegseth.
The announcement marks a shift from Petro’s foreign policy. The Shield of the Americas, created by President Donald Trump in March, is a regional coalition against organized crime that was joined by right-wing governments such as those of Argentina, Chile, Ecuador and El Salvador, but not by left-wing administrations like those of Brazil, Colombia, Guatemala or Mexico. De la Espriella, who received Trump’s electoral backing, will come to power with rhetoric aligned with the White House on an iron-fist approach to organized crime and immigration.
The lawyer won Sunday’s runoff with 49.66% of the vote, against 48.70% for left-wing candidate Iván Cepeda, according to the preliminary count. The judges’ tally, which has already surpassed 99.9% of the polling tables, coincides almost entirely with those results, and the European Union’s electoral observation mission described the vote as democratic and transparent. The official declaration by the National Electoral Council, which formalizes the result, is expected in the coming days.
From Washington, Trump on Monday claimed credit for De la Espriella’s victory and predicted that he will be a great president and that the bilateral relationship will be much better. His arrival in power is expected to strengthen cooperation between the two countries, after the relationship was marked by tensions over the past two years.
The United States last year removed Colombia from its list of countries that cooperate in the fight against drug trafficking, while Petro questions the UN’s methodology for measuring coca crops. The Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) also sanctioned Petro for alleged links to drug trafficking, accusations the outgoing president rejects. De la Espriella will take office on August 7, a date set by Colombian constitutional tradition.