Category World News

After hours of heated exchanges between their leaders in public, the US and Colombia pulled out of a trade dispute on Sunday.

Washington threatened tariffs and sanctions against Bogota after Colombia refused to accept two US military aircraft carrying Colombians who had been deported from the US. The US is Colombia’s largest trading partner.

Till late on Sunday, Colombia agreed to accept deportees and the US claimed victory in an online dispute that ended with Donald Trump and his Colombian counterpart Gustavo Petro. What actually transpired and what was in danger for Washington and Bogota are more detailed below.

What was Trump’s row with Colombia about?

In response to Trump’s growing crackdown on immigration to the US, Colombian President Petro refused to let two US military aircraft carrying deported Colombian migrants land.

He claimed that Trump had disrespected the deported migrants. A video of deported detainees restrained in an airport in Brazil was reposted by Petroetro. If a nation sends migrants back, it must be with dignity and respect for them and for our country, he wrote. “I cannot allow them to stay in a country that doesn’t want them.”

According to a report released by the US Department of Homeland Security, there were 240, 000 unauthorised Colombian immigrants in the US in 2022.

Petro made an offer to fly the president’s plane to facilitate the migrants’ return, which he claimed was more dignified than the US’s return.

Trump hit back, accusing Petro of jeopardising US security.

Threatening tariffs and sanctions, Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform on Sunday: “These measures are just the beginning. We will not allow the Colombian government to violate its legal responsibilities in regards to the detention and deportation of the criminals they forced into the United States.

Marco Rubio, the US’s secretary of state, added on Sunday that he was enforcing visa restrictions for Colombian officials and their families, who “were to be involved in the US repatriation flight operations.”

What was Trump’s tariff threat?

As the back-and-forth continued, Trump upped his threats, ordering 25 percent tariffs on all Colombian goods coming into the US. These tariffs, he warned, would then be raised to 50 percent in the following week.

In addition, Trump said he would impose “visa sanctions” and a “travel ban and immediate visa revocations” on government officials and their family members and supporters, while tightening border inspections of all Colombian nationals and cargo.

What was Colombia’s reaction?

In retaliation to Trump’s threats, Petro threatened to also impose 25 percent tariffs on US goods.

The Colombian president posted a series of defiant messages on X on Sunday, responding to Trump’s threats.

“Your blockade does not scare me, because Colombia, besides being the country of beauty, is the heart of the world”, he wrote in one of them.

“The US cannot treat Colombian migrants as criminals”, Petro wrote on X, also pointing out that there are “15, 660 Americans irregularly settled in Colombia”.

The row was resolved late on Sunday. According to Colombian Foreign Minister Luis Gilberto Murillo, authorities have “overcomed the impasse” and will accept US citizens deported. He continued, “Colombia’s government has the presidential plane ready to facilitate the return of Colombians who were scheduled to travel there this morning on deportation flights.”

Colombia’s statement additionally said that Murillo and Colombia’s ambassador to the US would, in the upcoming days, travel to Washington to continue diplomatic dialogue and ease tensions.

Colombia adhered to all of Trump’s demands, including “unrestricted acceptance of all illegal aliens from Colombia, including on US military aircraft, without limitation or delay,” in a statement from the White House.

What does the US import from Colombia?

If the tariff war had continued, both sides would have suffered.

Between January and November 2024, the US imported goods worth $16bn from Colombia, according to US Census data.

The US receives its largest supply of cut flowers from Colombia, importing nearly two-thirds, or 66 percent of its cut flowers from the country, according to 2022 data from the Observatory of Economic Complexity (OEC). Valentine’s Day, coming up on February 14, would have pinched Americans more had the tariffs kicked in.

Colombia accounts for just under 20% of US coffee imports, only slightly behind Brazil, the country’s top coffee exporter.

The US also imports crude petroleum, gold, aluminium structures, bananas, and coffee and tea extracts from Colombia — but in much smaller quantities.

Colombia is one of the few nations with a trade deficit with Washington. In other words, the US exports more goods from Colombia than it does from the South American country.

What effects might Colombia have if the US and China trade?

While a trade war would have made specific goods — like flowers and coffee — costlier for US consumers, &nbsp, it would have had larger implications for Colombia’s economy, impacting both its exports and imports.

“These measures would have significant political and economic implications”, Victor Munoz, a visiting fellow at Germany-based think tank, European Council on Foreign Relations, told Al Jazeera.

“For Colombia, such actions could lead to the loss of thousands of jobs, particularly in sectors like oil and gas, gold, coffee, and flowers”, he explained.

According to OEC data from 2022, the US and Colombia trade both more heavily than they do in terms of imports and exports. A quarter of Colombia’s exports go to the US, and the imports from the US comprise 26.4 percent of Colombia’s total imports.

“Colombia has worked for decades to diversify its international relations and expand its commercial partnerships. However, it is unrealistic to anticipate Colombia’s ability to replace its export markets for its goods and services or the US investment’s growth rate in the near future, Munoz said.

According to US Census data, Colombia imported $ 17 billion worth of goods from the US between January and November 2024.

Petroleum products are the US’s most valuable export to Colombia, accounting for about $ 2.5 billion in exported goods in 2023. The next most valuable export was corn, at $1.2bn in 2023, and chemicals, at $1bn in the same year.

Colombia also imports soybean meal and planes, among other things, from the US.

According to Munoz, “taxes could also lead to a devaluation of the Colombian peso, heightened economic risks, and inflationary pressure caused by rising costs of imported goods and raw materials,” Munoz said.

According to the statement, “These measures would undoubtedly have significant economic and social effects in nations like Colombia.”

What are new deportation flights?

Unauthorized immigrants are transported to their country of origin on a deportation flight. However, this is the first time US military aircraft are being used to deport immigrants, according to an unnamed US official, Agence France-Presse reported.

Deportation is not new, and the US began deporting immigrants starting as early as 1892, when 2, 801 immigrants were removed, according to the Department of Homeland Security. However, the number skyrocketed starting in the 1990s.

Democratic US President Joe Biden had promised to end deportations in 2021 but instead he increased them. He most recently deported the most immigrants in nearly a decade, more than 271,000 over the past fiscal year.

Between 2021 and 2024, the US expelled 28, 635 Colombian citizens, according to the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) website. The fiscal year of 2024 saw the occurrence of nearly half of these.

Trump, however, made false claims that the Biden administration had allowed “hordes” of undocumented immigrants to enter the country and that other nations were sending violent criminals to the US.

He vowed to carry out the “largest deportation operation in history” with a promise.

Donald Trump has already had a significant impact on Washington since his first week in office ended.

Trump deployed the military to the southern border during his first seven days, and he signed a number of executive orders, which included 26 that were issued shortly after taking office and addressed issues like the renaming of the Gulf of Mexico.

One of his biggest promises during this term is to tackle&nbsp, irregular immigration. What is expected on Monday and the most recent news from his presidency?

Avoided: Trade war with Colombia

Trump made the announcement that Colombia had resisted deportation flights for migrant workers on Sunday, declaring victory.

Colombian President Gustavo Petro resurrected the situation after earlier on Sunday, he had prohibited landing US military cargo aircraft carrying illegal immigrants.

Petro vowed to reject the flights unless the US treated detainees with respect and dignity. Trump retaliated by imposing tariffs on all imports from Colombia, a travel ban for Colombian citizens, the suspension of US immigration visa processing, and the suspension of processing for both immigrant and nonimmigrant visas.

However, the US claimed that Colombia had agreed to accept migrant deportation flights, including those on military aircraft, and that the tariffs would be halted after hours of hostility with Bogota. Trump’s allies claimed Petro won while Petro lost, saying the outcome was a win or a loss.

Petro fell in line.

Thanks, President Trump! pic. twitter.com/FKTWKWrGlb

Prior to Trump’s election, US military aircraft were rarely used for deportation flights. Two flights, each carrying about 80 deported migrants, were made to Guatemala on Friday. A US military aircraft with migrants on board a landing request was turned down by Mexico last week. Previously, Trump suggested that he might impose 25-percent, across-the-board tariffs on Mexican goods starting in February.

In the near future, Trump may be able to win over Latin American nations, according to Oliver Della Costa Stuenkel, an international relations professor at the Getulio Vargas Foundation&nbsp in Sao Paulo, Brazil. However, his aggressive tactics may prompt regional leaders to look for alternative partners.

“Leaders across Latin America will look at these situations and will, in my opinion, be becoming more aware of the danger of being too dependent on the US,” Stuenkel told Al Jazeera.

“They will try to diversify their partnerships because dealing with Washington is very difficult for weaker nations, and having alternatives to the US is the best way to increase your leverage when negotiating with Trump and increase your margin of manevrtitude. To avoid being so dependent that you have nowhere to run, Stuenkel said.

Trump’s ‘ clean out ‘ Gaza proposal

Trump said “cleaning out the whole thing” on Saturday, suggesting moving more than one million Palestinians from the Gaza Strip to other nations.

“I would like Egypt to take people”, Trump said. “You’re talking about probably a million and a half people, and we just clean out that whole thing and say, ‘ You know, it’s over. ‘”

Trump praised Jordan for welcoming Palestinian refugees in the past while expressing his gratitude to King Abdullah II, saying, “I would love for you to take on more,” as the Gaza Strip is a mess at the moment. It’s a real mess”. More than 2.39 million registered Palestine refugees reside in Jordan, which has a population of 11.1 million, according to the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA).

Israel’s 15-month war on Gaza has displaced almost all of the enclave’s 2.3 million residents, some of them multiple times. Trump said people in Gaza could move either temporarily or permanently.

Palestinians on Sunday overwhelmingly rejected the proposal.

Palestinian Nafiz Halawa, a resident of Nuseirat in central Gaza, told Al Jazeera, “It’s impossible for people to accept this.” “The weak might leave because of the suffering they have endured, but the idea of us leaving our country, … it’s absolutely impossible”.

Other things you might not have noticed:

JD Vance’s first interview: &nbsp, JD Vance gave his first interview since becoming the US vice president, discussing issues with CBS News that included Trump’s immigration policy and his executive order aimed at ending birthright citizenship. Vance disputed the Trump administration’s justification for the order despite legal experts’ claims that it needs to be changed to end it.

“Temporary residents, people who come in here, whether legally or illegally, and don’t plan to stay, their children shouldn’t become American citizens”, he said. “I don’t know any country that does that or why we would be different”. However, many countries offer birthright citizenship, including Canada, Mexico, Belize and Argentina.

US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth spoke with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday, marking the Pentagon’s first interaction with a foreign official since taking up his position. In a statement from the Pentagon, Hagseth and Netanyahu “discussed the importance of advancing mutual security interests and priorities, especially in the face of persistent threats.”

What’s next for Trump and his administration on Monday?

Trump is scheduled to attend the Republican members of the House of Representatives’ annual retreat at his golf resort in Florida, Trump National Doral Miami, according to US media reports.

Legislators have the opportunity to discuss policies at party retreats and come together to discuss their best implementation strategies.

House Republicans, led by Speaker Mike Johnson, are expected to focus on crafting a bill that incorporates the administration’s key priorities – including energy, border security and tax policy.

Separately, a US Senate vote on the nomination of Trump’s Treasury secretary nominee, Scott Bessent, is planned for Monday afternoon.

The Department of Treasury has complete control over sanctions, international finance, public debt, and tax policy.

Bessent, a Wall Street financier who once worked for George Soros, was an early backer of Trump’s 2024 presidential bid, donating at least $3m to the campaign, according to records from the Federal Election Commission.

Following the 2021 coup, an artist flees Myanmar and continues to use art to express his country’s perplexing situation.

On January 27, 1945, the largest Nazi concentration and extermination camp, Auschwitz-Birkenau, was liberated. An estimated 1.3 million people were deported to Auschwitz between 1940 and 1945 and 1.1 million of them were murdered.

As Europeans mark the 80th anniversary of this dark chapter of history, their leaders are releasing&nbsp, statements&nbsp, about the “civilisational rupture” the Holocaust represented and the need to “resist this hatred”. However, many of these declarations fail to take into account the political reality of Europe, where the Nazi and fascist successors are now popular and even in power.

Far-right organizations and figures have, of course, repeatedly honed their crimes against Holocaust victims and pledged to fight anti-Semitism, but that does not imply that they have abandoned their Nazi and fascist pasts. Instead, they have implemented a strategic alignment that, with the support of the political mainstream, allows them to continue to spread the same vile notions of white supremacy and hatred.

So how did we get here?

For decades, Europe’s far right openly embraced anti-Semitism. Figures like Jean-Marie Le Pen, the founder of the National Front in France, and Jörg Haider, founder of the Freedom Party in Austria, disrupted the political consensus of post-war Europe by embracing Holocaust denial rhetoric.

They were vocal about their hatred, but they continued to exist on the sidelines.

However, over the past few decades, and especially with the start of the US-led “war on terror”, the far right gradually shifted its rhetoric towards open Islamophobia. Far-right leaders, like Geert Wilders of the Party for Freedom in the Netherlands, portrayed themselves as defenders of Western civilisation against a new “enemy”: the Muslims.

They adopted&nbsp, Christianity – and, symbolically, Judaism – as cultural markers to rally the majority who embrace the “values” of the “Judeo-Christian world” against their contemporary “other”. By using Islamophobic imagery, they capitalized on people’s fears about globalization and immigration, calling Islamophobia an invasion and a threat to Muslim communities.

This rhetoric fits into the narrative that Israel accepted to support its ongoing oppression and occupation of the Palestinians, as well as the Muslim world’s that the “war on terror” imposed. The extreme right finally accepted Israel, which is not surprising then. While in the past, they questioned Israel’s right to exist, they now question a Palestinian state’s right to exist, referring to Palestine as Judea and Samaria.

In 2010, after a trip by far-right leaders from Austria, Belgium, Germany and Sweden, their parties signed the so-called&nbsp, Jerusalem Declaration, &nbsp, which expressed the commitment of these forces to Israel’s “right to self-defence” from “Islamic forces”.

This approach has worked quite well by embracing Israel’s use of anti-Semitic language and beliefs in favor of Islamophobic ones. &nbsp, As a result, today, at the 80th anniversary of the end of the Holocaust, the far right is the strongest it has been since World War II.

The political landscape of&nbsp, 2022-24&nbsp, reflects this success. In 2022, Giorgia Meloni and her post-fascist Brothers of Italy won the Italian snap elections, she became the country’s first far-right female prime minister. In the 2023 Dutch elections, Wilders ‘ far-right party came out first and after months-long negotiations, formed a coalition government.

In 2024, Portugal, which had long lacked strong far-right representation, saw the Chega party grow its parliamentary seats from 12 to 50. The National Rally won the popular vote in France, but it lost the parliamentary seats. In the UK, Reform UK became the third largest party with 14 percent of the vote, it is currently polling&nbsp, at 25 percent, one percentage point behind the ruling Labour. In Germany, Alternative for Germany (AfD) claimed victory in elections in the state of Thuringia. The Freedom Party is set to take over the government in Austria after winning the election with 29 percent of the vote.

Following the elections of 2024, the far-right unified to form the third-largest section of the European Parliament known as the “Patriots for Europe.” They adopted the phrase “Make Europe Great Again.”

While the far right’s rise is a victory for its own movements, it also reflects the failures of Europe’s political establishment. Center-right parties have largely supported anti-immigration and anti-Islamophobia, ratifying these positions rather than challenging them. Meanwhile, centre-left parties have struggled to address these issues effectively, leaving them vulnerable to the so-called culture wars. The far right has also been able to profit from the mainstream’s failures in government, which have increased socioeconomic unrest, particularly among the working class.

The far right served as a uniting force for centrist parties in coalition negotiations in a number of nations for years. The growing number of coalitions that include the extreme right in Europe demonstrate that this is no longer the case. This alleged cordon sanitaire has long since passed.

The far-right has become more and more popular as a result of this normalization, making its members no longer reluctant to express their extremist ideas in public. In Austria, the Freedom Party openly&nbsp, talked&nbsp, about “remigration” as part of its election campaign last year, while a member of the AfD called for a “Srebrenica 2.0 in Germany” among her peers.

These calls are an evolution of the same anti-Semitic and racist ideologies that caused the Holocaust’s horrors. Simply put, the defense of whiteness has converted Muslims to their “enemy” in the name of Islam. The far-right ideology of today’s core still emphasizes the replacement theory and white supremacy.

The far-right’s dramatic rise and its normalization of racism and genocidal intent cast a long shadow over the European mainstream’s claim that the Holocaust was a “civilizational rupture,” that it was unique and exceptional, and that it was unique.

The ideologies and factors that led to the Holocaust have historically fostered imperial genocidal violence outside of Europe. And European politics still includes them a lot. This implies that such genocidal violence is still a possibility. The denial of the genocide in Gaza and the country’s unwavering support for it by some European nations are just some examples of this.

The solemn statements made today to commemorate the anniversary of Auschwitz’s liberation ring hollow in this regard. The rise of the far right is a chilling reminder of how fragile European commitment to “never again” is, 80 years after the Holocaust’s end.