A looming trade war between the US and Colombia seems to have been averted after the Colombian government agreed to allow US military flights carrying deported migrants to land in the Andean country.
The spat erupted on Sunday when President Gustavo Petro barred two military planes carrying Colombians deported from the US from landing.
The Trump administration responded by threatening to slap punitive tariffs on Colombian exports to the US.
President Petro at first said Colombia would retaliate by imposing tariffs on US goods, but the White House later announced that Colombia had agreed to accept migrants - including those arriving on US military aircraft - "without limitation or delay".
The White House hailed the agreement with Colombia as a victory for Trump's hard-line approach, after the country's two leaders had exchanged threats on social media on Sunday.
"Today's events make clear to the world that America is respected again," White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt wrote in a statement.
She added that the tariffs and sanctions which the Trump administration had threatened to impose on Colombia, should it not comply, would be "held in reserve, and not signed, unless Colombia fails to honour this agreement".
She also said that President Donald Trump "expects all other nations of the world to fully co-operate in accepting deportation of their citizens illegally present in the United States".
A cornerstone of Trump's immigration policy is removing unlawful migrants from the US, with the promise of "mass deportations".
Petro, a keen user of social media, posted on X that he had "barred US planes carrying Colombian migrants from entering our territory" because "the US can't treat Colombian migrants like criminals".
He demanded that the US put procedures in place for migrants to be "treated with dignity".
He also said he was ready to send the presidential plane to the US to transport the migrants.
Colombia has accepted deportation flights from the US in the past. In 2024, 124 planes carrying deported migrants from the US landed in the country.
But President Petro appeared to object to the return of deportees on military rather than commercial flights , and to the way the migrants may be treated on those flights.
In his posts on X, Petro referenced a news video showing migrants deported from the US to Brazil, who had been handcuffed and had their feet restrained during the deportation flight.
He said that he would "never allow Colombians to be returned handcuffed on flights".
