Petro caves in completely to Trump over migrant repatriation flights
After posting the most insane drunken rant ever seen by a head of state on X, Colombia's Chavista-Marxist president, Gustavo Petro, has done a sudden 180, completely caving in to the demands of President Trump to accept repatriation flights for Colombian criminals illegally present in the U.S. as he had agreed to earlier.
This was reposted by him on his X site, though I don't see the original up there now:
HAHAHAHAHAHA. TOTAL. VICTORY.
— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) January 27, 2025
Colombian President Petro was just forced to repost a press release from the White House saying he caved to Trump. pic.twitter.com/3EvLZep7Jv
He also posted this, under a Colombian government masthead, which says basically the same thing:
Comunicado oficial pic.twitter.com/VlTD49lsQs
— Cancillería Colombia (@CancilleriaCol) January 27, 2025
He still has his insane rant about hanging around with blacks fighting Mexicans in the Washington slums, fascists, Cordoba, Sacco and Vanzetti, ancient Egyptians, beauty and poetry, his gastritis, and a long string of other Hugo Chavez-like gibberish pinned at the top of his tweets here.
Petro en los barrios negros de Washington. https://t.co/tZVjS9AXiZ pic.twitter.com/H1UjQdE430
— Cesar Moya (@zuricht94) January 26, 2025
But the cave-in was real, the most grovelly cave-in I've ever seen, just perfect for a would-be clown dictator who went on a drunken rant.
It came as the result of one post from President Trump, offering a minor array of sanctions, and hardly the hardest ones he could have enacted, after Petro reneged on allowing two repatriation flights of Colombian criminals illegally present in the U.S. after all the paperwork was signed:
President Trump used only ONE Truth Social Post to solve Columbia illegals deportations and slammed Socialist Colombian President Gustavo Petro! Deport them all!!!
— AJ Huber (@Huberton) January 26, 2025
FAFO!π€£π€£π€£π
Only One Post!π pic.twitter.com/C08L9hoqME
I don't know about you all, but I've been laughing all day. From the fact that the lying legacy media and the left thought they had a "tiger" ready to pounce on and defy the lion, President Trump, in the president of Colombia and then Trump casually took out his club on the 3rd…
— unseen1 (@unseen1_unseen) January 27, 2025
This is a reported video of what that looked like:
President Trump was in the middle of golfing when Colombia thought it would be a good idea to FUCK AROUND. So what did he do? He requested Secretary of State Marco Rubio to Trump Int’l to ensure they FIND OUT. America First in realtime! pic.twitter.com/sUckyWtMXY
— Suburban Black Man πΊπΈ (@niceblackdude) January 26, 2025
Trump posted this to underline the point:
π¨ LMAO! After President Trump threatened Colombia and they instantly folded, Trump posted this
— Nick Sortor (@nicksortor) January 26, 2025
FAFO
What a LEGEND π€£ pic.twitter.com/W05pWnyvc1
While I think Trump was the most decisive factor, my sense is that Colombia's powerful business elites probably leaned on Petro to cave, too, given the disastrous effects tariffs would have on their industries:
Los empresarios colombianos deberían mañana pararle el país a Petro. Todo.
— Orlando Avendaño (@OrlvndoA) January 26, 2025
Su supervivencia depende de obligar a Petro a ceder o de tumbarlo.
All these hot takes on #Colombia overlook at least one key point: Petro’s petulance is going to crater Colombia’s economy and he is already unpopular domestically. This is not “Latin America” where shaking your fist at gringos makes you more popular. He’ll pay a domestic price.
— Eric Farnsworth (@ericfarns) January 27, 2025
Colombia's elites fought for 12 long years for free trade with the U.S. something they completely earned and would now be seeing all go to dust over this drunken rant by Petro and idiotic refusal to accept two repatriation flights he had already agreed to accept because he claimed the criminals weren't being treated well enough. Valentine's Day was right around the corner and 50% tariffs would decimate Colombia's flower industry on one of its most important paydays, one they had been working for by growing the plants for all year long. Other industries would be similarly affected, but flowers and coffee would be particularly hard hit. Businesses would be ready to roll to stop this monstrous tradeoff; surely someone got word to Petro that he would be thrown out screaming like they used to do to Ecuador's crazy presidents and that got his attention.
No wonder he groveled.
Not everyone agrees with that, given that Petro hates all businesses and has alienated himself from them, meaning, someone in his inner circle more likely understood the suicidal nature of Petro's unhinged rants and slammed him up against the wall to cave in.
Economics is a big deal in Colombia but there also was the military angle that may have forced Petro into the fetal position -- the U.S. gives Colombia $400 million to fight narcoterror and Colombia this past week just suffered a truly bad military defeat at the hands of narcos aligned with Venezuela, losing actual territory to the thugs:
Que esto no borre el hecho de que hace unas horas la noticia era que Colombia había perdido el control de Catumbo a manos de Venezuela vía el ejército narcotraficante irregular del ELN. Esta crisis con EE.UU. aparte de terrible es autoprovocada. Hay gobiernos que les conviene…
— Luis Carlos Vélez π (@lcvelez) January 27, 2025
Google Translate:
Let this not erase the fact that a few hours ago the news was that Colombia had lost control of Catumbo to Venezuela via the irregular drug-trafficking army of the ELN. This crisis with the US, apart from being terrible, is self-inflicted. There are governments that benefit from chaos.
They are going to need U.S. aid to get their land back.
Colombia's press rightly wondered what got into Petro, why did he cancel the flights and babble on about 'dignity' for returning criminals whom he mischaracterized as mere 'immigrants' after all the paperwork was signed for the repatriation?
A Colombian diplomat, or former one, wrote about how cumbersome the process would have been to just get clearance to land the jets:
Como parte de mi gestión como Cónsul General de Colombia en Orlando, cada mes debíamos entregar pasaportes exentos, a los colombianos que iban a ser deportados por ICE a Colombia. Esta era una laborar coordinada con bastante antelación con BOP, Cancillería, ICE, otros. π§΅
— Claudia Bustamante (@cmbustamante) January 26, 2025
And some pointed out Petro's flaming hypocrisy -- when Maduro expelled a batch of Colombian illegals from Venezuelan territory not too long ago, they were basically chased across the border with all their worldly goods on their backs -- which was hardly this 'dignity' to Colombian migrants Petro claimed to be so concerned about -- and these were merely illegal migrants, not the true criminals Trump was sending back.
Me imagino que cuando Maduro expulsó a los colombianos en la frontera como alimañas también pidió trato digno y protocolos para su repatriación. Cierto? pic.twitter.com/YlzIIbuMqz
— Wilson Ramirez (@toporam74) January 26, 2025
Colombians understood the nature of the expulsions as Petro preened about 'dignity:
Me informan que los 160 colombianos deportados de Estados Unidos a Colombia sí son delincuentes. No venían esposados por ser migrantes, sino por haber cometido delitos en Estados Unidos.
— Guillo (@codiguillos) January 26, 2025
Google Translate:
I have been informed that the 160 Colombians deported from the United States to Colombia are criminals. They were not brought in handcuffs because they were migrants, but because they had committed crimes in the United States.
Yet Petro still caved and groveled, taking his thrashing from Trump who came in with his belt.
It leaves Trump in a powerful position for other matters, and it's fascinating that it took such a fool to make it happen, one that should have known that this was how Trump would react -- he did the same hard hand of sanctions to Mexico, shutting down the entire border during his first term when Mexico refused to stop illegals from coming and got his 'remain in Mexico' agreements in place as a result. Everything was docile after that.
But Petro missed that, which might have allowed him to save face by not starting anything in such a foolish way.
Now he's in worse shape than ever. In the top paper in the Colombian press, El Tiempo's front page featured a huge photo of President Trump looking stern and unamused at Petro's clown antics.
But the U.S. is in a better place because of Trump's swift action.
The implication for the U.S. is here:
The Trump - Colombia victory reminds me of when Reagan stood down the striking air traffic controllers
— IT Guy (@ITGuy1959) January 27, 2025
It wasn’t just a tactical victory. It sent a message to the world that the U.S. President means business.
Guaranteed Denmark and Panama observed what happened today. https://t.co/o1XxQZlQSR
We’ve watched a short teaser with Colombian President changing his mind 30 minutes after Trump announced his retaliatory actions, one now can only imagine how things will be with Putin, Trump’s negotiations regarding Canada, Greenland, Panama,…
— Zineb Riboua (@zriboua) January 26, 2025
That's amazing work from Trump, one that is sure to increase his leverage elsewhere. Making America Great Again contains a sizable contingent of FAFO, which Petro learned the hard way.
Image: Screen shot from X