All preparations are ready in Colombia to receive the United States Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, on the occasion of his tour of Latin America, which also includes visits to Ecuador and Peru.
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His first stop will be in Barranquilla, where he will hold a meeting with the far-right Colombian president, Abelardo de la Espriella. Sandra Borda, a Political Science professor at the University of the Andes, insists that the main topic of the talks will be cooperation in the fight against drug trafficking.
“It is an agenda fundamentally focused on the issue of security and on the fight against what the United States has called narcoterrorist organizations. Considering that these are three right-wing governments with political and ideological closeness to the Trump government in the United States, this is precisely a conversation to achieve joint action against those organizations,” she explains.
De la Espriella has repeatedly promised his desire to improve relations with the Donald Trump government in the United States, even supporting Israel, recognizing its sovereignty over the Golan Heights, or placing a Colombian embassy in Jerusalem.
“It is a government that has made concessions precisely thinking about increasing the level of cooperation between the two countries in terms of military equipment, resources, and intelligence to be able to combat those criminal organizations with much more force,” Borda points out.
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“We come from a government where that understanding was not a deep understanding, because Petro did not believe in the fight against drugs as the United States government conceives it, and he was also negotiating with some of these criminal organizations the possibility of submitting their leaders to justice,” adds the professor.
Sandra Borda states that De la Espriella seeks in this visit to defend the interests of the private sector with the elimination of trade tariffs imposed by the White House, as well as to obtain aid for the reconstruction of areas affected by the earthquake.
“I believe there is a strong cooperation agenda around the issue of post-earthquake reconstruction, and in general economic aid. Colombia leaves the previous government with a large fiscal deficit that has deteriorated the rating of international credit organizations towards the country, and has just come out of an earthquake that will require a large fiscal expenditure,” she details.
Marco Rubio’s tour highlights this administration’s interest in Latin America, which goes beyond the fight against criminal organizations and includes the renewal of the government and economy of Venezuela and the future of Cuba.
