Colombia braces for U.S. censure over faltering drug war

Expectations are running high in both Bogotá and Washington that Colombia could be decertified in 2025 for its supposed failure to meet Washington’s drug policy goals, ending a three-decade run of compliance. A large part of U.S. aid to Colombia depends on the annual certification process, which determines whether the country is meeting Washington’s criteria for satisfactory cooperation in fighting illicit drugs. The U.S. is Colombia’s largest trading partner and strongest military ally. If decertified, Colombia stands to lose hundreds of millions of dollars in military and police aid, face punishing economic sanctions and visa restrictions, and see a freeze in longstanding political ties. The U.S. would likely feel repercussions as well, since Colombia provides Washington with crucial intelligence as well as forces primed to carry out joint operations.

The country’s failure to meet benchmarks for the reduction of coca crops, the raw material for cocaine, is the main source of Washington’s gripes. Suspending forced eradication of the plant has been a project of President Gustavo Petro’s government, which has drawn on abundant evidence to argue that destroying crops has exacted a heavy toll on poor farmers and the rural areas they inhabit while failing to curb the market for cocaine. Still, with 253,000 hectares under cultivation, Colombia has today reached its highest-ever levels of both coca leaf and refined cocaine production since the UN started monitoring in 1999. Volumes of drug seizures have risen, reaching 848.5 tonnes of cocaine in 2024 – almost double the 2019 total – but officials fear this number may simply mean that more drugs than ever are leaving Colombia. Complicating matters further, the relationship between Petro and President Donald Trump is troubled. Colombia only narrowly avoided harsh sanctions in January over its reluctance to accept U.S. military deportation flights, in a spat that saw the two leaders exchange fierce diatribes on social media.

The rise in cocaine production and chill in bilateral ties have seen attention turn to the U.S. certification process, a longstanding feature of Washington’s war on drugs, dating back to 1986. Before 15 September of every year, the U.S. president must make a determination as to whether major drug supplier and trafficker countries are complying with Washington’s counter-narcotic objectives. States must show that they are meeting commitments established in the UN Convention against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances and the 1986 Narcotics Act, as well as fulfilling relevant bilateral agreements that could include everything from limiting drug supply and extraditing criminals to policing borders and countering money laundering. Although the certification process is built around clear criteria, the decision is made by the U.S. president and profoundly influenced by political and diplomatic considerations. Past administrations have repeatedly certified Colombia despite concerns about inadequate compliance because, in their view, preserving close cooperation with Bogotá was more advantageous to Washington.