A year and a half remains for the government of Iván Duque with the new North American administration and the evolution of bilateral relations, increasingly important for Colombia, will be interesting.
The clumsiness and imprudence of the government and the Democratic Center in the last electoral campaign in the USA and the evident discomfort of important leaders of the Democratic Party over the undue interference of officials and congressmen of the Colombian right in favor of Trump will take a backseat. The professionalism and pragmatism of the State Department will prevail in Biden-Duque relations, even if the wounds on Capitol Hill remain open.
However, there will be substantive changes. In the last two and a half years, the ideological and political alignment of Trump and the Duque-Uribe government was total. Together they embarked on the adventure of the “humanitarian concert” in Cúcuta to overthrow Maduro, they decided to concentrate their efforts to combat drugs on the fumigation of illicit crops with glyphosate and began to distance themselves with the peace agreement. The systematic attacks on the JEP, the entrapments and the latest statements by Trump in the campaign in Florida against the “Santos-Obama-Farc” agreement are a clear demonstration of that full understanding.
As a result of this privileged relationship, Colombia regressed decades in its foreign policy and adopted key decisions in multilateral settings subject to North American interests. We are also renewing bilateral relations.
This situation was possible not only because of the government’s decision to align itself with Trump, but also, we must be fair, because ideologically both governments shared the same vision of the world and the continent. Now that coincidence disappears and we will see if Duque will have the flexibility to accommodate the new North American policy on issues so sensitive to both nations, such as the fight against drug trafficking, Venezuela or the implementation of the peace agreement itself.
There is no doubt that the position of the United States on these three important fronts will be different as of January 20. In the face of drug trafficking, common concern about the growth of illicit crops will remain, but Trump’s enormous enthusiasm for spraying will diminish and a new approach will be proposed, prioritizing voluntary eradication and social substitution of crops, as well as the transformation of crops. territories.
Certainly, the recent report of the Bipartisan Commission to the US Congress will be the roadmap of the new North American policy to combat this scourge. In the case of Venezuela, the possibility of military adventures as a solution to the crisis will be ruled out and a peaceful and democratic solution will be insisted upon, maintaining international pressure on the Maduro regime. There will be greater multilateral dialogue, and the United States will seek joint formulas with the European Union, which the Trump-Duque axis rejected. And, without a doubt, the implementation of the peace accord will receive a new impetus with the Democratic administration.
Officials announced in foreign policy accompanied former President Obama, they know Colombia well and supported the peace agreement with the FARC. Much clearer and more forceful support is expected for the agreement and the institutions derived from it, such as the JEP.
The question is, then, whether Duque will be able to bypass his excessive ideologization and the radicals in his party and adapt to the new vision of the United States, or will he persist in his worn-out right wing militarist formula. The first answers will be found in the changes or not that you make in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the embassy in Washington or the Ministry of Defense.
If you understand the new political reality of the United States, with a Democratic government and majorities of that party in the House of Representatives, relations will surely continue close. If you decide to persist in your failed policies on these three fronts, we will witness a cooling in bilateral relations in the final stretch of your government. It will dawn and we will see.
JUAN FERNANDO CRISTO
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