Bananas and avocados among the products in the firing line as US president ordered 25 per cent tariffs on Colombian imports
Colombian president Gustavo Petro has agreed to accept flights with deported Colombian nationals returning from the US after President Trump ordered the imposition of 25 per cent tariffs on all Colombian imports.
In a statement released on Sunday night, the White House said: “The government of Colombia has accepted all of President Trump’s terms, including the unrestricted acceptance of all illegal aliens from Colombia returning from the US, including on US military aircraft, without limitations or delays”.
President Donald Trump ordered the tariffs, effective immediately, after Petro refused to accept two flights with deported Colombian nationals from the US.
In response, President Petro announced that Colombia would itself impose additional 25 per cent tariffs on imports from the US and assured that work would be done to replace imported goods with national product,
However, the scale of the economic shock that Trump’s move would have unleashed led him to reconsider his position.
Washington said the sanctions have been drafted, but will not be signed, unless “Colombia does not comply with this agreement”.
The US is Colombia’s main trading partner – according to the National Association of Foreign Trade (Analdex), between January and November 2024, some 3,230 Colombian companies sent their products to that country, including bananas, coffee and flowers.
The president of the Colombian-American Chamber, AmCham Colombia, María Claudia Lacouture, said the impact would have been ”immediate and devastating”.
In 2023, Colombia exported US$194.9mn worth of bananas and plantains to the US. Shipments of avocados have also grown steadily since Colombia was granted access to the US market in 2017 and were on course to finish 2024 on 95mn lbs, a 216 per cent increase on the previous year.
Persian limes, blueberries and physalis are amongst the other fresh fruits that Colombian exports to the US.
