Jennifer Scotland comments on the US decertification of Colombia

The US decertification of Colombia for its failure to take effective action against drugs is a largely performative gesture to communicate Trump's disapproval of the current Colombian administration and its attempts to deviate from the punitive, metrics-focused US-led 'War on Drugs' counternarcotics strategy that has failed to disrupt drug markets. Decertification is an outdated foreign policy that risks alienating longstanding allies of the US in Latin America.

On 15 September, US President Donald Trump declared that Colombia has 'failed demonstrably to meet drug control obligations', decertifying the country for the first time since 1997, a year which predated increased US-Colombia military cooperation under Plan Colombia that marked the onset of a long-standing, and up until now, stable alliance between the two countries. With the decertification, Colombia joins outcasts Afghanistan, Bolivia, Myanmar and Venezuela, marking a strikingly symbolic – though unsurprising – move by the Trump administration.

The Annual Drug Certification process is a long-held US foreign policy tool to reward rule-abiders of its punitive drug policy doctrine and punish detractors, primarily by restricting foreign aid. Certification is based on the extent to which countries meet certain metrics on illicit crop eradication, drug seizures and arrests that underpin the US ‘War on Drugs’ strategy. Such metrics are increasingly recognised as failing to bear fruit in terms of disrupting drug markets, while disproportionately penalising coca farmers, the lowest hanging fruit in the cocaine market hierarchy.

Coca crops and cocaine production have steeply increased in Colombia since 2020, as armed groups have expanded their territorial presence and made production methods more efficient. While this trend began under former President Iván Duque (2018-22), President Gustavo Petro (2022-26) has been criticised for exacerbating it by deviating from purely punitive and militarised policies and advocating alternative approaches including coca crop substitution and rural development programmes, which he has struggled to implement.

However, the decertification is also symbolic of the widening ideological rift between Colombia and the US under the second Trump administration, which has become increasingly fraught since Petro refused to accept migrant deportations in February. Through decertification, the Trump administration is effectively gesturing its disapproval of Petro's government ahead of the upcoming elections in March. However, its decision not to suspend aid or cooperation with Colombia despite the designation indicates US reluctance to fully sever ties with its closest military ally in the region, perhaps because of concerns about deepening Colombia-China ties since the diplomatic spat.

For decades, the US certification process has limited the potential of Colombia to deviate from US counter-narcotics doctrine, largely because of a dependence on US foreign aid. However, China presents a fewer-strings-attached alternative. The use of US certification as a foreign policy tool therefore needs revisiting, not least for the demonstrable ineffectiveness of punitive measures for addressing the root causes of the illegal drug trade, but also because it risks alienating US allies in Latin America and pushing them closer to China.

Comment by Jennifer Scotland, Research Analyst, Organised Crime and Policing