The United States decertified Colombia as a reliable partner in the War on Drugs on Monday, citing a rise in coca cultivation and cocaine production. While the Trump administration waived the crushing sanctions that usually come with decertification, the decision underscored the strained relations between the U.S.and Colombian under Trump. Alongside Colombia, the administration also decertified Afghanistan, Bolivia, Myanmar, and Venezuela, waiving sanctions for the last three.
The White House was quick to blame Colombian President Gustavo Petro directly, arguing in its submission to Congress that the “failure of Colombia to meet its drug control obligations over the past year rests solely with its political leadership.” Secretary of State Marco Rubio called Petro “erratic” and “not a very good partner in taking on the drug cartels.” Trump’s determination contrasted Petro with the “skill and courage” of Colombia’s security institutions and municipal authorities in confronting criminal groups—although the mayors of five major Colombian cities visited the United States in early September to lobby against decertification.
A long-running critic of the U.S.-led War on Drugs, Petro denounced the move in a televised cabinet meeting. As he has many times before, he blamed U.S. demand for his country’s drug problem, lamenting that Colombia’s antidrug efforts “are not really relevant to the Colombian people.” Petro reiterated his opposition to coca eradication efforts, which have largely targeted low-level producers through aerial fumigations of cancer-causing chemicals while arming military—and paramilitary—forces to the teeth to wage war on “narcoguerrillas”—thousands of whom were simply innocent coca-picking peasants. Instead, Petro has sought to target the criminal structures that ship cocaine internationally. Though his government has seized more cocaine than any other president, coca cultivation has tripled in the last decade. Violence as a result of the battle to control the trade has also sharply escalated.
Petro has also condemned the politically-motivated nature of U.S. drug policy, pointing to the Trump administration’s threats against Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and its lethal strikes against alleged drug traffickers at sea. Washington’s use of the term “narco-terrorists” in Colombia’s decertification announcement—a term it has leveled against Maduro—raises fears of broader intervention from the seas to land. Petro’s left-wing politics and defense of migrants have drawn the ire of the Trump administration, and Rubio himself has called the Colombian president an “agent of chaos.”
Given that the Trump administration suspended the sanctions that usually follow decertification—including massive cuts in U.S. assistance and an automatic “no” vote on loans from international financial institutions—analysts argued the move was largely symbolic. Nevertheless, the country may struggle to attract foreign investment, one of the many reasons that WOLA warned in the days before the announcement that the U.S. should not decertify Colombia. WOLA noted that Colombia’s last decertification in the mid-1990s, which included sanctions, spurred a massive boom in drug production, paramilitary and guerrilla territorial expansion, and violence. “The decades-old U.S. practice of judging and punishing other states for allegedly substandard counter-drug performance through decertification is an antiquated, blunt, counterproductive foreign policy tool that should no longer exist,” WOLA wrote ahead of the decision.
Though Washington left the door open to reversing course if the Colombian government takes “more aggressive action,” Petro responded defiantly by freezing arms purchases, rejecting U.S. aid, and accusing the United States of meddling in Colombia’s 2026 elections. The accusation is not unfounded: the plan by former Foreign Minister Álvaro Leyva to overthrow Petro that was thwarted last June—and detailed in a bombshell report by El País—was pitched to U.S. officials and involved decertification as a crucial first step.
PURCHASE A COPY OF "GREEN CAPITALISM IN THE AMERICAS"
This special issue of the NACLA Report critically examines the rise of green capitalism in the Americas in the lead-up to COP30 in Belém, Brazil in November. Guest edited by Sabrina Fernandes and Breno Bringel, this collection analyzes how the logics and instruments of green capitalism are shaping policy and territory, enabling new forms of dispossession, and deepening historical inequalities. The Fall 2025 issue also highlights the movements, communities, and visions from below that challenge these false solutions and point the way toward just ecosocial transitions.
Take advantage of this special offer to purchase an individual issue of "Green Capitalism in the Americas"
Offer valid for U.S.-based addresses only and while supplies last. Readers outside the United States may contact us at info@nacla.org to inquire about international shipping options.
Una comunidad indígena Nasa quiso darle a la hoja de coca un uso distinto al narcotráfico. Pero el proyecto se desplomó bajo el peso de la presión estadounidense y la prohibición internacional.
Amidst protests, President José Raúl Mulino holds firm to social security reform while suspending habeas corpus and attacking unions and striking workers.
An Indigenous Nasa community set out to offer farmers an alternative to the drug trade, but the project collapsed under the weight of U.S. pressure and international prohibitions.
La violencia estatal sin precedentes contra los jubilados y sus aliados no ha logrado sofocar el descontento popular por la creciente precariedad de la vida en Argentina.
From exhibitions to queer spaces for grief, Angelinos forge networks of care and resistance to confront state violence and nurture collective futures.
IMAGE OF THE WEEK
Josefina Salomón, an Argentine journalist who recently wrote on the struggle of the country's pensioners for NACLA, shows her article to Eduardo Barnei, a leading retiree activist who was interviewed in the piece. Read the piece by Josefina and Patricio A. Cabezas here. (Patricio A. Cabezas)
AROUND THE REGION
MORE STRIKES ON BOATS—Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro condemned the Trump administration’s deadly drone-strike of an alleged drug-trafficking boat in the Caribbean as a “heinous crime,” warning that the real goal was “regime change for oil.” Shortly after, Trump announced a “second kinetic strike” against “extraordinarily violent drug trafficking cartels and narcoterrorists” that “pose a threat to U.S. National Security, Foreign Policy, and vital U.S. Interests.” As with its first strike on September 2 that killed 11 people, the government provided no evidence against the three men killed and invoked the same flimsy legal justification—that they were members of drug cartels, recently classified as “foreign terror organizations,” that posed a direct threat to U.S. security. On Tuesday, Trump told reporters that the military had actually “knocked off three boats,” not two. In response to a question about Maduro’s fears of an impending U.S. invasion, Trump shrugged and said that he should “stop sending the Tren de Aragua into the United States.” The day before, Trump openly acknowledged the possibility of removing Maduro by force. A growing chorus of politicians and media figures—from across the political spectrum—have slammed the strikes as illegal and unjust.
MASS PROTEST IN ARGENTINA—Tens of thousands took to the streets of Buenos Aires on Wednesday to protest far-right President Javier Milei’s brutal funding cuts to universities and pediatric care. On September 10, Milei vetoed a University Financing Law approved by congress weeks before, and the next day he vetoed a law that would have increased funding for pediatric hospitals. Protesters demanded that legislators vote to overturn the vetoes—an effort that succeeded in the lower house on Wednesday evening—marking the third major uprising in defense of universities since Milei took office. Students participated en masse by staging walking outs and holding outdoor classes. The protests follow heavy losses in last week’s regional elections. On Monday, Milei signalled a retreat from his radical austerity program, claiming “the worst is over” and unveiling slight budget increases for health, education, and pensions. Teachers’ unions, however, dismissed the meager increases as deepening an “unprecedented crisis.” With midterm elections around the corner, Milei’s disapproval rating has hit a new high, compounded by a corruption scandal involving his sister and the ongoing fallout from his brutal austerity program.
ECUADOR PROTESTS—Tens of thousands of Ecuadorians marched in the city of Cuenca on Tuesday to demand the suspension of a gold mine, defying a “state of exception” issued the same day by President Daniel Noboa. The anti-mining action merged with nation-wide protests against the government’s decision to cut fuel subsidies, something Noboa vowed not to do but announced last week through his cabinet. Anticipating unrest, Noboa took the drastic step of temporarily relocating the presidency from Quito to the Indigenous city of Latacunga, a move analysts saw as an attempt to avoid protests in the capital and confront organized Indigenous movements in situ. Fuel subsidy cuts have historically been explosive: in 2019, similar hikes triggered a massive uprising that was met with violent repression and mass arrests, forcing the government to reverse its IMF-backed austerity package. Today’s movements are mobilizing with the same goal.
LATIN AMERICA DEADLIEST REGION—Four out of five land defenders murdered worldwide in 2024 were from Latin America, according to a new Global Witness report. Of 120 activists killed globally, 146 were from the region. Colombia remained the deadliest country for land defenders—with 48 activists murdered. Guatemala followed with 20 deaths—a fivefold increase from the year before, giving the country the unfortunate distinction of having the most killings per capita in the world. Mexico and Brazil recorded more than 10 killings each. The report urged governments to strengthen land rights, recognize and protect local communities, investigate crimes transparently, and adopt international frameworks like the2018 Escazú Agreement. It also called for formal recognition of the crucial role played by land defenders at the upcoming COP 30 conference in Belém. Nearly three quarters of all such killings over the last 13 years have occurred in Latin America and the Caribbean.
