Colombia caves on deportations after Trump tariff threats

Update Colombia caves on deportations after Trump tariff threats
US president Donald Trump threatened tariffs against Bogota after president Gustavo Petro turned back two US military aircraft with repatriated Colombians. (AFP)
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Updated 27 January 2025

Colombia caves on deportations after Trump tariff threats

Colombia caves on deportations after Trump tariff threats
  • Colombia is the second Latin American nation to refuse US military deportation flights

WASHINGTON: Colombia on Sunday backed down and agreed to accept deported citizens sent on US military aircraft, hours after President Donald Trump threatened painful tariffs to punish the defiance to his mass deportation plans.

Colombia’s leftist president, Gustavo Petro, had earlier said he would only take back citizens “with dignity,” such as on civilian planes, and had turned back two US military aircraft with repatriated Colombians.

Trump, less than a week back in office, responded furiously and threatened sanctions of 25 percent that would quickly scale up to 50 percent against Latin America’s fourth largest economy.

Petro initially sought to hit back and impose his own tariffs on US products, but by the end of the volatile Sunday he had backed down.

Colombian Foreign Minister Luis Gilberto Murillo told a late-night news conference that his country had “overcome the impasse” and would accept returned citizens.

A White House statement said that Colombia has agreed to “unrestricted acceptance of all illegal aliens from Colombia returned from the United States, including on US military aircraft, without limitation or delay.”

“Today’s events make clear to the world that America is respected again,” it said.

“President Trump will continue to fiercely protect our nation’s sovereignty, and he expects all other nations of the world to fully cooperate in accepting the deportation of their citizens illegally present in the United States.”

Trump said he would suspend implementation of the tariffs.

It had been unclear even earlier how quickly Trump could impose tariffs on Colombia, historically one of Washington’s closest allies in Latin America, which enjoys a free-trade agreement with the United States.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio, whose wife is Colombian-American, suspended issuance of visas at the US embassy in Bogota and said visas would be revoked to Colombian government officials and their immediate family members.

The White House said the visa measures would stay in place until the first planeload of deportees returns.

Trump also vowed to subject Colombians to greater scrutiny at US airports.

Trump – who during his campaign said that immigrants were “poisoning the blood” of the United States – took office with promises to round up and swiftly deport undocumented people.

While some countries including Guatemala have accepted military deportation flights, Trump had faced resistance from Petro, a former guerrilla elected in 2022 as Colombia’s first left-wing leader.

“The United States cannot treat Colombian migrants as criminals. I forbid entry to our territory to US planes carrying Colombian migrants,” Petro wrote earlier on X.

The Colombian government earlier said it was instead ready to send its presidential plane to the United States to transport the migrants “with dignity.”

Petro also said there were 15,600 undocumented Americans living in his country and asked them to “regularize their situation,” while ruling out raids to arrest and deport them.

Petro’s initial hard-ball tactics infuriated his many critics in the historic US ally.

Former right-wing president Ivan Duque accused Petro of “an act of tremendous irresponsibility” for refusing what he called Colombia’s “moral duty” to take back illegal migrants and warned US sanctions would take an “enormous” toll.

Trump’s deportation threats have put him on a potential collision course with governments in Latin America, the original home of most of the United States’ estimated 11 million undocumented migrants.

Brazil, which is also led by a left-wing president, voiced outrage over treatment by the Trump administration of dozens of Brazilian migrants deported back to their country on Friday.

The migrants, who were deported under a bilateral agreement predating Trump’s return, were handcuffed on the flight, in what Brazil called “flagrant disregard” for their basic rights.

Edgar Da Silva Moura, a 31-year-old computer technician who was among the 88 deported migrants, said: “On the plane they didn’t give us water, we were tied hands and feet, they wouldn’t even let us go to the bathroom.”

“It was very hot, some people fainted.”

The president of Honduras, Xiomara Castro, called for an urgent meeting of leaders from the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) to take place Thursday in Tegucigalpa to discuss migration following the latest US moves.

While previous US administrations also routinely carried out deportations, the Trump administration has begun using military aircraft, with at least one landing in Guatemala this week.


Malian immigrant who rescued families from Paris blaze to be honored for bravery

Updated 3 sec ago

Malian immigrant who rescued families from Paris blaze to be honored for bravery

Malian immigrant who rescued families from Paris blaze to be honored for bravery
PARIS: A man who saved several people including children and babies from a fire last week in Paris while balancing on a narrow ledge will be decorated for his courage.
Fousseynou Cissé is making headlines in France after risking his life to help those trapped in a top-floor apartment located in a northern district of Paris.
Paris police chief Laurent Nunez said on Monday that he would be awarding Cissé a medal “in recognition of his courage and dedication.”
“This medal recognizes republican courage that commands admiration,” Nunez said.
According to local media, two families were trapped by the fire on Saturday and took refuge in a flat on the top floor. When Cissé realized there was a fire, he decided to leave the building to protect himself, his wife and child.
“As I was leaving, (my neighbor) called me over and told me that there were people trapped upstairs,” he told France Info.
Cissé went to the neighboring apartment, climbed out of the window, and stood on a railing linking the two apartments, 20 meters (65 feet) from the void, in order to evacuate the victims trapped by the toxic fumes.
Cissé then evacuated children who were handed over through a window by their mothers, passing them to the neighbor in an adjacent apartment. He helped the children over the ledge before helping the two mothers reach safety.
“It wasn’t calculated; it was instinct: ‘We’ve got to go’. So I jumped in to help,” he said.
In 2018, French President Emmanuel Macron lauded as a hero a migrant from Mali who scaled an apartment building to save a child dangling from a balcony, and rewarded the young man’s bravery with an offer of French citizenship and a job as a firefighter.
The 39-year-old Cissé reportedly works as a receptionist in secondary schools. He does not have French citizenship but holds a residence permit.
“If you’re not a French national, you won’t get hired,” he said. Asked by France Info what he might wish for as a reward after his heroic gesture, he replied that he hoped “it might loosen things up, and that things would settle down" so that he could be hired by the Paris town hall.

A pacing dog helps Swiss rescuers find a man who fell into a glacier

A pacing dog helps Swiss rescuers find a man who fell into a glacier
Updated 5 min 2 sec ago

A pacing dog helps Swiss rescuers find a man who fell into a glacier

A pacing dog helps Swiss rescuers find a man who fell into a glacier
  • AirZermatt spokesman Bruno Kalbermatten said "imagine if the dog wasn't there, I have no idea what would have happened to this guy"

GENEVA: Rescuers on Tuesday hailed as a “four-legged hero” a furry Chihuahua whose pacing atop an Alpine rock helped a helicopter crew find its owner, who had fallen into a crevasse on a Swiss glacier nearby.
The man, who was not identified, was exploring the Fee Glacier in southern Switzerland on Friday when he broke through a snow bridge and fell nearly 8 meters (about 26 feet), according to AirZermatt, a rescue, training and transport company.
Equipped with a walkie-talkie, the man connected with a person nearby who relayed the accident to emergency services. But the exact location was unknown. After about a half-hour search, the pacing pooch caught the eye of a rescue team member.
As the crew zeroed on the Chihuahua, the hole the man fell into became more visible. Rescuers rappelled down, rescued the man and flew him and his canine companion to a hospital.
“Imagine if the dog wasn’t there,” AirZermatt spokesman Bruno Kalbermatten said by phone. “I have no idea what would happen to this guy. I think he wouldn’t survive this fall into the crevasse.”
On its website, the company was effusive: “The dog is a four-legged hero who may have saved his master’s life in a life-threatening situation.”


Indian villagers beat five to death for ‘witchcraft’

Indian villagers beat five to death for ‘witchcraft’
Updated 48 min 14 sec ago

Indian villagers beat five to death for ‘witchcraft’

Indian villagers beat five to death for ‘witchcraft’
  • Despite campaigns against superstition, belief in witchcraft remains widespread in rural areas across India, especially in isolated tribal communities
  • Women have often been branded witches and targeted

NEW DELHI: Indian villagers beat a family of five to death and dumped their corpses in a lake accusing them of “practicing witchcraft” after the death of a boy, police said Tuesday.
Three people have been arrested and have confessed to the crime, police in the northern state of Bihar said in a statement.
Three women — including a 75-year-old — were among those murdered.
The main accused believed that his son’s recent death was caused by one of those killed, and blamed “him and his family of practicing witchcraft,” the statement said.
“After beating the victims to death, the perpetrators loaded the bodies onto a tractor and dumped them in a pond,” police said.
The murderers and victims all belonged to India’s Oraon tribe in Bihar, India’s poorest state and a mainly Hindu region of at least 130 million people.
Despite campaigns against superstition, belief in witchcraft remains widespread in rural areas across India, especially in isolated tribal communities.
Some states, including Bihar, have introduced laws to try to curb crimes against people accused of witchcraft and superstition.
Women have often been branded witches and targeted, but the killing of the family of five stands out as a particularly heinous recent example.
More than 1,500 people — the overwhelming majority of them women — were killed in India on suspicion of witchcraft between 2010 and 2021, according to the National Crime Records Bureau.
Some believe in the occult, but attackers also sometimes have other motives including usurping their rights over land and property.


Germany must honor visa obligations to Afghan refugees, rules court

Germany must honor visa obligations to Afghan refugees, rules court
Updated 08 July 2025

Germany must honor visa obligations to Afghan refugees, rules court

Germany must honor visa obligations to Afghan refugees, rules court
  • Since May 2021, Germany has admitted about 36,500 vulnerable Afghans including former local staff by various pathways
  • Some 2,400 Afghans approved for admission are waiting in Pakistan to travel to Germany without a clear idea of when

BERLIN: A German court ruled on Tuesday that the government is obliged to issue visas to Afghan nationals and their family members who were accepted into a humanitarian admissions program that the new center-right coalition intends to shut down.

After the hasty withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021 by Western allies, Germany established several programs to resettle local staff as well as particularly vulnerable Afghans.

Since May 2021, Germany has admitted about 36,500 vulnerable Afghans including former local staff by various pathways.

Some 2,400 Afghans approved for admission are waiting in Pakistan to travel to Germany without a clear idea of when, as the program has been suspended pending a government review, the foreign ministry in Berlin said this month.

The court decision, in response to an urgent appeal by an Afghan woman and her family, ruled that the government was legally bound to honor its “irrevocable” commitment to them.

“The applicants assert that they are entitled to a visa and can no longer remain in Pakistan. They face deportation to Afghanistan, where they fear for their lives,” it said.

However, the government is within its rights to end the program for Afghans and refrain from issuing any new admission commitments going forward, according to the court in Berlin.

NGOs have said that an additional 17,000 Afghans are in the early stages of selection and application under the now-dormant scheme.

The court’s decision can be appealed.

The foreign ministry did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comment.

Germany’s new government has pledged a tougher stance on migration after several high-profile attacks and the rise of the far-right made it a pivotal issue in February elections.

As a part of that push, conservative Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt has vowed to halt refugee admission programs and to deport people to Afghanistan and Syria.


Cambodian garment workers fret Trump’s new tariff threat

Cambodian garment workers fret Trump’s new tariff threat
Updated 08 July 2025

Cambodian garment workers fret Trump’s new tariff threat

Cambodian garment workers fret Trump’s new tariff threat
  • Cambodia, a major manufacturer of low cost clothing for Western brands, was among the nations hardest hit by Trump’s “Liberation Day” blitz of tariff threats in April

PHNOM PENH: As Cambodian garment workers took breaks from toiling in sweltering factories on Tuesday, they feared for their jobs after US President Donald Trump’s threat to impose a 36 percent tariff.
“I beg the US to reduce the tariff for the sake of workers in Cambodia,” 38-year-old Im Sothearin told AFP as she rested from her work in an underwear factory in the capital Phnom Penh.
“If they charge a high tariff, it is only workers who are going to suffer,” said the mother-of-three who earns only $300 a month.
“Factories might be closed or workers will have their wages lowered, or be forced to work faster.”
Cambodia — a major manufacturer of low-cost clothing for Western brands — was among the nations hardest hit by Trump’s “Liberation Day” blitz of tariff threats in April.
The US president originally outlined a 49-percent rate if Cambodia failed to broker a deal with Washington. On Monday, he lowered it to 36 percent and extended the negotiation deadline to August 1.
While the levy is lower than the original eye-watering figure, it has done little to allay anxieties.
“If the tariff is that high, companies won’t have money to pay,” 28-year-old pregnant worker Sreymom, who goes by only one name, told AFP as she bought fruit on her lunch break.
“I am worried that we won’t have jobs to do,” the 11-year veteran of the factory floor said. “I want the tariff to be reduced more.”
Cambodia’s chief negotiator in talks with Washington called the reduction in the proposed rate — announced in a letter among more than a dozen Trump despatched to trade partners — a “huge victory.”
“We are so successful in negotiations,” Deputy Prime Minister Sun Chanthol told reporters in Phnom Penh. “We still have a chance to negotiate further to reduce the tariff rate more.”
But back in April commerce ministry spokesman Penn Sovicheat told AFP that harsh US tariffs on his country were “not reasonable.”
Cambodia said it had about $10 billion in exports to the United States last year, mainly garment products.
The nation has been paying a 10-percent standby rate as negotiators rush to make a deal.
Many factories in Cambodia are Chinese-owned. The White House previously accused the kingdom of allowing Chinese goods to stop over on the way to US markets, thereby skirting steeper rates imposed on Beijing.
Yi Mom has had a two-decade career in the garment industry. But she frets it may be ended if Cambodia fails to soften the blow threatened by the United States.
“I fear that the high tariff will affect factories and will result in fewer jobs for workers,” said the 47-year-old.
“Then we will have low wages and will not be able to support our families.”