(Refities to add dropped word ‘Ban’ in paragraph 1)
By Phil Stewart and Oliver Griffin
Washington/Bogota (Reuters) -US -U.S. President Donald Trump said on Sunday he would impose retaliatory measures on Colombia, including tariffs, sanctions and travel bans, after the South American country rejected two U.S. military planes carrying migrants as part of immigration traffic from Trump were deported.
Trump said Colombian President Gustavo Petro’s action endangered U.S. national security and he has directed his administration to retaliate.
This includes all goods coming into the United States being subject to emergency 25% reductions, which will rise up to 50% in a week. a travel ban and visa revocations of Colombian government officials and their allies; Fully imposing treasury, banking and financial sanctions, and improved border inspections of Colombian nationals.
“These actions are just the beginning,” Trump wrote on Social Truth. “We will not allow the Colombian government to violate its legal obligations regarding the acceptance and return of the criminals they forced into the United States!”
Colombia’s refusal to accept the flights is the second case of a Latin American nation refusing U.S. military interdiction flights.
Petro condemned the practice and suggested it treated migrants like criminals. In a post on the social media platform XX, Petro said Colombia would be deported back home with migrants on civilian planes, saying they should be treated with dignity and respect.
Colombia’s decision follows one by Mexico, which also denied a request last week to allow a U.S. military plane carrying migrants to land.
“The United States cannot treat Colombian migrants as criminals,” Petro wrote, noting that there were 15,660 Americans without proper immigration status in Colombia.
Petro’s comments add to the growing chorus of discontent in Latin America as Trump’s weekly administration begins to mobilize for mass shifts.
Brazil’s foreign ministry late Saturday condemned the “degrading treatment” of Brazilians after migrants were handcuffed on a commercial deportation flight. Upon arrival, some passengers also reported mistreatment during the flight, according to local news reports.
The plane, which was carrying 88 Brazilian passengers, 16 U.S. security officials and eight crew members, was originally scheduled to arrive in Belo Horizonte in the southeastern state of Minas Gerais.
There, Brazilian officials ordered the handcuffs removed and President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva designated a Brazilian Air Force (FAB) flight to complete their journey, the government said in a statement on Saturday.
The commercial charter flight was the second this year from the United States carrying undocumented migrants to Brazil and the first since Trump’s inauguration, according to Brazilian federal police.
Officials at the U.S. State Department, the Pentagon, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The use of US military aircraft to conduct deportation flights is part of the Pentagon’s response to Trump’s national immigration emergency declaration on Monday.
In the past, U.S. military aircraft have been used to move individuals from one country to another, such as during the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021.
This was the first time in recent memory that US military aircraft were used to fly migrants out of the country, a US official said.
US military aircraft conducted two similar flights to Guatemala on Friday, each carrying about 80 migrants.