The extraction of Nicolás Maduro on Saturday was meant to signal the end of an era. Instead, it has exposed an uncomfortable truth that may loom over Washington weeks and months after the “shock-and-awe” attacks in central Caracas have waned from headlines: was Venezuela’s democratic opposition sidelined at the very moment it appeared closest to victory?

Just weeks earlier, María Corina Machado, the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize laureate and the symbolic leader of Venezuela’s opposition, had laid out her Freedom Manifesto — a sweeping blueprint for a Venezuelan-led democratic transition rooted in dignity, elections, free markets and the return of millions of exiles. She framed the coming moment not as an American intervention, but as a national rebirth steered by Venezuelans themselves.

That vision now appears to be colliding with a far more transactional reality.

Following Maduro’s capture in a U.S.-led operation, President Donald Trump declined to elevate Machado or her movement into any formal role. Instead, senior U.S. officials have coalesced around Delcy Rodríguez – Maduro’s longtime lieutenant and overseer of the oil sector — as Washington’s primary interlocutor in Caracas. Trump publicly praised Rodríguez’s cooperation while dismissing Machado as a “very nice woman” who “lacks the support” to lead the country.

On Monday, Delsy Rodríguez took the oath of office in the presence of the Ambassadors to China, Iran and Russia. The scene from the National Assembly recalls the sham investiture of Maduro on January 10, 2025,  and sends a dire signal to the internationl community:  Does oil security matter more than a secure democracy?

White House insiders told U.S. media that Trump had never warmed to Machado, “because his feelings got hurt”, reads the Daily Beast. According to an article on Monday in The Washington Post, the president declined to pick Machado because she committed the “ultimate sin” of offending his pride, after receiving the Nobel Peace Prize. “If she had turned it down and said, ‘I can’t accept it because it’s Donald Trump’s,’ she’d be the president of Venezuela today,” cites the newspaper’s sources.

Having lost the Oslo podium as the world’s “peace president,” personal grievance and strategic calculation have marked the White House’s decision to annoint a “moderate” in Miraflores. But Rodríguez is no moderate, and her penchant for state repression remains intact. A  recent article in the Wall Street Journal affirms that Washington is willing to tolerate a Maduro 2.0 — a Chavista continuity government — so long as it cooperates on oil, narcotics enforcement and geopolitical alignment.

On the ground in Caracas, the mood reflects that ambiguity. There have been no mass celebrations, no release of political prisoners, and no clear roadmap. Power remains concentrated within the same military-backed elites that have pillaged Venezuela for over three decades, even as Maduro himself awaits trial in New York on charges expected to exceed those once brought against Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán.

U.S. officials insist this is realism, not betrayal. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has argued that squeezing the regime economically and forcing compliance on security and oil will eventually produce leverage. But he has stopped short of demanding immediate elections — a notable omission given that the opposition already won one.

Machado’s Freedom Manifesto now reads less like a transition plan and more like a rebuke. It imagined a Venezuela where sovereignty flowed from the ballot box, not from foreign capitals; where dignity, not expediency, guided reconstruction; and where Venezuelans — not external powers — chose their leaders.

Instead, Trump has suggested that the United States will “run” Venezuela, even as it leaves the same repressive security apparatus intact. The contradiction is stark: maximum news coverage abroad, minimal transformation on the ground.

The question, then, is not only whether Trump sidetracked María Corina Machado, but whether the United States has traded a rare democratic opening for short-term gains. If Chavismo survives without Maduro — its prisons full, its generals untouched, its oil flowing under U.S management — the Nobel laureate’s blueprint may yet stand as the document of a revolution deferred.

And history may judge that Venezuela was not lost for lack of courage at home, but for lack of conviction abroad. In the words of Mexican historian Enrique Krauze, the end-game is inevitable: “If geopolitics seeks to turn Venezuela into a pawn on its chessboard, the people will take to the streets. They have chosen a legitimate president: Edmundo González. And they have a moral leader: María Corina Machado. Obstacles may arise, but Venezuela’s liberation is irreversible.”

As the year winds to an end, the Bogotá Post looks back at 2025 in Colombia

2025 might well be looked back upon in years to come as the calm before the storm. An early sign of the potentially troubled waters ahead was the assassination of Senator Miguel Uribe in early June. Other themes included friction with the US, political deadlock and a sense that much is being put off for next year.

Relations with the USA started badly after Trump was sworn in, as he deported Colombian immigrants in chains on military planes. Petro at first refused to receive the flights, before relenting and allowing them to land but greeting the travellers and treating them with dignity.

From there it got worse, with Petro turning up on the New York streets protesting while on a visit to the UN. Trump in turn has no love for Petro, calling him a bad guy and putting him and his family on the Clinton List, alongside highly controversial longtime advisor Armando Benedetti. It also emerged at that point that Petro had separated from Veronica Alcocer some time ago.

After the US started bombing alleged narco ships in international waters in the Caribbean, things took an even darker turn. Petro, like most world leaders, was highly critical of US operations in the Caribbean, leading Trump to warn that “he could be next”.

Bogotá herself kept on with business as usual, although that’s not always a good sign. Mayor Gálan has little to show at the mid point of his time in the Palacio Liévano. Crime and rubbish are the most visible signs of a city that sometimes feels stuck in place, although the Metro seems to be on track.

Away from the febrile world of Colombian politics, there was plenty going on in cultural fields, from an impressive Copa América run by the superpoderosas to possibly the best festival Cordillera yet in Bogotá.

Violence mars the start of 2026 campaigning

Senator Miguel Uribe was assassinated at the start of his electoral bid in a worrrying reminder of what can happen in Colombian politics. The politician was shot a number of times in the head while making a visit to Modelia and put into intensive care for a month before passing.

One shooter, just 15 years of age was shot and captured at the scene by Uribe’s protection. Other suspects and accomplices were relatively quickly captured, although the intellectual author of the crime remains unclear. While social networks have been hothouses of rumours and propaganda, candidates have thankfully so far stayed largely clear of commenting.  

Runners and riders for the presidency have emerged and started the process of thinning the field. The Liberales, Conservadores and Cambio Radical are yet to declare their representatives. However, there are still six candidates for political parties and another 14 who have acquired the requisite 635,000 signatures to run as independents.

Among the latter names there are some big names such as Claudia López, Luis Murillo, Abelardo de Espriella and Vicky Dávila. There’s also a number of seeming no-hopers, but remember that was Rodolfo Hérnandez this time last year and he got to the second round as a semi-protest candidate.

Iván Cepeda is Petro’s successor candidate for Pacto Historico, while the Centro Democrático have plumped for Paloma Valencia. Sergio Fajardo is back in the race again, for Dignidad y Compromiso. That means no place for some high profile heavyweights such as Maria Fernanda Cabal, Susana Muhamed and Gustavo Bolívar.

High-profile roadblocks, change by the back door

One of the constants in Colombian politics in 2025 was that major reforms and were blocked and delayed, yet a few things were snuck in through alternative measures. This was exemplified by Petro declaring economic emergency in a constitutionally dubious manner.

The reforma de salud was sunk again in the springtime, but by mid-year MinSalud had gone ahead with some of the changes anyway. This may well be reversed by an incoming government next year, meaning that EPSs remain somewhat in limbo.

Cómo así que no hay que castigar alcohol cuando más se tiene alcohol en la mercancía, ¿no sabe que es la droga que más produce muerte y daños en los sistemas presupuestales de salud? Menos alcohol en las personas y la sociedad es productivo y beneficioso para la vida. Aquí no se… https://t.co/GFbT4Wx0k5

— Gustavo Petro (@petrogustavo) December 31, 2025

Major budget changes are unlikely to get through under anyone, so failing to get this done can’t really be laid at Petro’s door. However, he’s gone ahead with what he can do: enormous hikes in the minimum salary, IVA abolished on certain items, demanding that pension funds divest from foreign investments and repatriate their savings.

Paz Total is looking more and more like Fracaso Total as time ticks on. At best, talks with various groups are going nowhere, while other talks have essentially collapsed. Trump declaring the Gaitanistas a terrorist group has muddied the waters even further. The ELN, Colombia’s largest remaining guerilla force, in particular have intensified operations.

While some of that has underlined the difference between their rhetoric and reality, with December’s paro nacional affecting little of the country, other attacks have been bloody and worrying, with the increased use of drones a dangerous direction of travel.

Economic uncertainty?

Whether the economy is doing well or not and whether that is because or in spite of the government will depend mainly on your fellings towards Petro. It’s a mixed bag with plenty of caveats on both sides. GDP growth has been good and ahead of expectation, with unemployment continuing to fall and inflation slowing. Those new jobs are largely formal, too.  

However, the GDP growth isn’t as fast as it could be, while it’s outperforming regionally, it’s behind the global average. Unemployment is at a low point for the century, but is still mainly informal and the rate of decrease is slowing. It’s hard to guess how the recently announced minimum wage hike to COP$2,000,000 will affect this.

Much more worrying is that much of this may be built on sand. While Petro has struggled to get big-ticket bills through the legislature, he’s quietly done things behind the scenes that have ramped up public spending. He’s betting on that being an investment which will keep delivering in the long run. If not, it will be an albatross for future governments.

Inflation remains at 5.3% annually, not calamitous, but stubbornly high. The cost of living, too, is ever-increasing, not helped by uncertainty in global trade routes. Despite all that wind and bluster between Trump and Petro, tariffs remain at the standard 10% for the time being.

Petro finally got his reforma laboral over the line, in some ways a major achievement considering the opposition it faced in the Senate. However, the text of the bill is somewhat underwhelming. For the main part, there are minor changes such as a cap on overtime and night shifts starting two hours earlier as well as solidifying full time contracts as the norm.

The most substantial change is a commitment to make online providers such as Rappi pay social security and workplace risk contributions for their workers. This may find the devil is in the details in terms of bringing it into reality.

Colombia also brought the Bre-B system of instant payments online. This is already having a huge impact in a country where digital payments are widespread and popular. Long term, this provides a base for increasing transparancy and reducing corruption. However, questions remain over the infrastructure underpinning these systems.

Transport no longer stuck in a jam

The really big local news has been that the Metro is progressing as planned. This might not seem like big news, but given how long the project spent in planning and the tendency of the president to stick his beak in, it’s just good to see something being done.

The first trains have arrived in the country and are running tests while the towering columns of the track are in place all over the city. Today, that means pain as Transmi stations close and traffic is rerouted, but all is in place for a fully integrated public transport system in the future.

RegioTram is also more or less on schedule, although it will need to be reworked to connect with the Bogotá systems, after it was pointed out that the planned stations are a fair distance away from the trnasmi and Metro. Regardless, connecting satellite towns with the capital is a gamechanging proposal.

Life in the city remains irritating due to continued high crime levels and the seeming refusal of Carlos Fernando Galán to do anything about rubbish on the streets. The best that can be said about Gálan at this point is that he has done little of note, hardly a glowing resumé, given his ambitions coming into office.

Culture vultures

The capital saw a celebration of Latino music as Festival Cordillera 2025 confirmed the event’s stature as a lodestone of music in Colombia. With Festival Estéreo Picnic 2025 providing a balance that focuses on anglophone music, the capital is well set. However, with both those festivals in the Parque Bolívar, Rock al Parque is struggling to stay relevant.

Plenty of other bands were touring throughout the year too, with Bogotá increasingly on the map for big-name world superstars. That means enduring the likes of Guns N’ Roses, but also means that rolos can see contemporary stars like Dua Lipa.

Former busker Ed Sheeran popped up on stage as a surprise guest of J Balvin in December, while another Brit unsurprisingly failed to turn up because that’s what Morrissey does these days. Latinos across Instagram responded by trolling the famous vegetarian with meat recipes.

Elsewhere online, Colombian food performed well on a host of dubious internet polls, sparkign waves of reposted joy throughout the year. In more dispiriting news, Club Colombia Negra was discontinued by Bavaria, meaning you have few chances to neck the country’s last widely available dark lager.

For those more interested in staying home, Colombia’s first ever board games convention took place in November. Ludotopia was an undisputed success, attracting the likes of Wingspan artist Ana Maria Martínez (who teased the upcoming expansion for Wingspan South America, Central America and Caribbean) and proving that Bogotá retains a dynamic and evolving cultural scene.

Colombia fall just short again

The women’s football team came into the Copa América on good form and were within seconds of taking the title. With two minutes of regular time to go, Mayra Ramírez put Colombia ahead for the third and seemingly last time at 3:2. Brazilian superstar supersub Marta, in her last tournament, broke Colombian hearts as she rolled back the years with a last gasp equalizer in the sixth minute of injury time.

The drama wasn’t over, as she then put Brazil in front for the first time in extra time before Leicy Santos equalized and took the game to penalties. There, the game slipped through the fingers of the superpoderosas as perma-champions Brazil showed their experience. They took the shoot out 5:4 for their 9th title in ten Copa Américas.

The men’s team, also runners up in their Copa América, ground their way to qualification for next year’s World Cup in North America. Conmebol was a slogfest this time around, with everyone except Argentina involved in taking points off each other and goals in short supply.

Eventually, Colombia found form, only losing a single game in the year and finishing with a goalfest against Venezuela, beating their fierce rivals 6-3 in the last game. That leaves Colombia 13th in the FIFA rankings – unlucky for some maybe, but not coach Nestor Lorenzo.

On the local stage, Santa Fe reclaimed the liga apertura for Bogotá, triumphing in Medellín over Independiente thanks to an inspired performance from Wigan legend Hugo Rodellega. Knocking out Millos and El Tigre Falcao on the way made it even sweeter. Junior of Barranquilla took the finalizácion, with Nacional winning the Copa Colombia. The latter was a Medellín derby and marred by a pitch invasion and violence at the end.

Cricket Colombia hit a six as MinDeportes officially recognised the gentleman’s game as a sport in the country. This opens up the field for more funding and support for events. They also welcomed a visiting team from Trinidad and Tobago as well as setting a T20 record for a last wicket chase in the Gulf Series against México.

What’s coming next?

Next year promises much more drama in Colombia, with national elections set to be hard-fought. This is an unusual cycle, as the country is preparing to see who will succeed a leftist president. Whether there will be continuity, a sharp tack rightwards or a drive for the centre is still anyone’s guess.

The lineups for the capital’s big music festivals seem strong, with a supporting cast of superstars also set to tour. The men’s football team have a relatively straightforward group in the World Cup and will fancy themselves to do well.

Our predictions for 2026 will be coming in the next few days, but whatever comes to pass, we’ll be here to keep you in the loop with what’s happening in Colombia and why. We got some of the 2025 calls right, after all. right Happy new year from the Bogotá Post – your English voice in Colombia!

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The National Liberation Army (ELN), a Colombian guerrilla group, concluded its 72-hour armed strike this morning, putting an end to days of tension in many parts of the country. 

The action –a common tactic in Colombia which aims at paralyzing movement by threatening violence against those who do not stay home – left at least three people dead, with incidents registered in 13 departments across the country.

The ELN declared the strike to oppose United States “imperialism” and military threats in the region, with analysts warning White House aggression in the region could empower the guerrillas.

What happened during the strike?

Police attributed various violent actions over the weekend to the ELN. Shortly after the strike began on Sunday, cylinder bombs appeared on key roadways across the country, disrupting land travel.

While over a dozen departments registered incidents, transport in Norte de Santander was particularly affected, with the main road from the capital, Cúcuta, to Pamplona closed due to a bomb.

An attack on a police station in Norte de Santander also claimed the life of an ambulance driver, who reportedly got caught in the crossfire. Two more corpses were found in a Cúcuta neighborhood near the Venezuelan border, which are being investigated as linked to the strike.

In addition to police stations, the rebels attacked other government installations, blowing up a toll booth in Barrancabermeja, Santander, and injuring a worker.

In a particularly grim incident, two policemen in Cali, Colombia’s third city, were killed in a bomb attack on Tuesday morning.

The ELN also burned an intercity bus in the Antioquia department.

‘On the offensive’

The ELN’s actions over the weekend marked the group’s first national-level armed strike since early 2022.

While its leaders signalled an openness to resume peace talks with the state just months ago, the rebels’ actions this week suggest a renewed aggression towards the government.

“The ELN is quite literally on the offensive. It is difficult to know what they want at this time,” said Laura Bonilla, deputy director of the Colombian Peace and Reconciliation Foundation (Pares). 

The analyst explained that the actions highlighted a shift in the methods used by the ELN, notably an increase in the use of indiscriminate explosives like cylinder bombs and drones. 

“The implication of this is that these are weapons that produce a greater effect on civilians,” Bonilla told The Bogotá Post.

In 2024, there was an 89% increase in the number of victims of explosive attacks in Colombia, according to the International Committee for the Red Cross.

Bonilla also noted that the ELN is growing more aggressive as the White House ramps up pressure in the region. 

The group declared the strike to “protest the threat of imperialist intervention in our country as a new phase of Trump’s neo-colonial plan.”

According to Bonilla, the ELN has been “paradoxically empowered” by Washington’s growing militancy, as it fuels their claims to be an anti-imperialist bastion. As Trump promises land strikes on Venezuela, where the ELN has a stronghold, the group may grow more active and more aggressive in Colombia.

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The United States today classified the Gaitanist Army of Colombia (EGC), Colombia’s most powerful armed group, a foreign terrorist organization (FTO).

The EGC, or Clan del Golfo, has expanded its criminal enterprise in Colombia in recent years, consolidating control over lucrative illicit economies like cocaine and illegal gold mining, as well as extorting large-scale enterprise.

While its designation as an FTO could assist authorities in unravelling the organization’s financial structure, analysts say it may threaten ongoing peace talks in Qatar between the EGC and the Colombian government.

“Today, the Department of State is designating Clan del Golfo as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) and a Specially Designated Global Terrorist (SDGT),” wrote Secretary of State Marco Rubio in a statement on Tuesday morning. 

“Based in Colombia, Clan del Golfo is a violent and powerful criminal organization with thousands of members. The group’s primary source of income is cocaine trafficking, which it uses to fund its violent activities,” continued the memo.

Who are the EGC?

The EGC was born from the remnants of the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC), a paramilitary group responsible for grave human rights abuses in the late 1990s and early 2000s.

Since then, it has re-branded itself several times; for a time it called itself the Urabeños, then the Clan del Golfo, honoring its heartland in the Gulf of Urabá in northern Colombia; it later changed its name to the Gaitanist Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AGC); most recently, the group adopted the EGC moniker. 

In recent years, the group has argued that it is a political actor in Colombia’s decades-long internal conflict, but its origins were strictly focused on making money illicitly. 

In the past decade, the organization has rapidly expanded beyond northern Colombia into as many as 20 departments across the country, exerting control in both rural and urban areas. 

“On the one hand, the group is an organized crime structure that manages various legal and illegal businesses and, on the other hand, it has also formed a uniformed army,” explained Gerson Arias, conflict and security investigator at the Ideas for Peace Foundation (FIP), a Colombian think tank.

Today, the group counts between 3,000 and 3,500 uniformed troops among its ranks while it has a further 6,000 members who form part of its broader crime structure of extorting businesses, according to Arias. 

“The main threat facing Colombia today is represented by the Clan del Golfo and its military and economic structure, both legal and illegal,” the analyst told The Bogotá Post.

What does the FTO designation change?

Following Washington’s sanctions, anyone deemed to be providing material support to the EGC can be brought to trial in a U.S. court. 

“Not only could cases be brought against members of the Clan del Golfo, but against any businessmen, facilitators, logistics operators, or anyone who provides even something as simple as buying them a meal,” explained Elizabeth Dickinson, Deputy Director for Latin America at International Crisis Group.

She told The Bogotá Post that the FTO designation could therefore “open some interesting doors” by exposing links between the EGC and legal enterprise, adding “this is an organization that has deep tentacles in the business world.”

The move could also provide a pretext for military action against the EGC in Colombia, with the Trump administration saying in recent weeks that drug production in any country is a legitimate target.

“An FTO in and of itself is not a justification for military action. However, it has historically been a step along the road to paving a narrative politically that could lead to the U.S. considering military action,” said Dickinson.

Impact on peace negotiations

In September, the first round of negotiations took place between EGC and Colombian state negotiators in Doha, mediated by the Qatari government.

A second round in December led to the signing of a “commitment to peace”, with the first step towards demobilization planned for March 2026. 

But the State Department’s FTO designation threatens to derail talks, according to analysts.

“I think there’s a lot of pending questions right now about the future of negotiations with this group,” said Dickinson. 

She stressed the progress made in talks so far, including a commitment to take a census of children fighting in the ranks of armed groups and return them to the state.

FIP’s Arias warned that the FTO classification will complicate both the subject of talks and the logistics of engaging in negotiations.

He noted that EGC negotiators will struggle to attend talks safely outside of Colombia and that Colombian authorities will be unable to provide credible non-extradition guarantees to the group’s leaders.

But Dickinson warned of the dangers of ending negotiations: “This organization is the largest threat to peace and security in Colombia. I think it will be important for the Colombian authorities and their country partners in mediation to consider what could be the implications of if peace talks were to end.”

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The Colombian National Liberation Army (ELN) has declared a 72-hour nationwide armed strike beginning on Sunday in protest against increased US military activity in Latin America.

In a statement, the group warned Colombians not to travel via the country’s roadways or navigable rivers during the three day window; while the group said it would not harm civilians, armed strikes are enforced through violence, with previous iterations involving vehicle burnings and civilian casualties.

The action will be the first national-level armed strike since 2022 and comes amid an ongoing U.S. boat bombing campaign – which the Pentagon says has targeted ELN members – as well as White House threats of further intervention, including land strikes in Colombia.

“We, the peoples’ forces of Colombia, protest the threat of imperialist intervention in our country as a new phase of Trump’s neo-colonial plan, which aims to sink its claws even deeper into Latin American and Caribbean territories,” read a decree emitted on Friday by the ELN.

On multiple occasions, U.S. President Donald Trump has floated the idea of striking drug production targets within Colombian borders; Colombia is the world’s largest producer of cocaine and the ELN is known to be a key actor in the drug trade.

The communiqué said the strike would begin at 6:00 AM on Sunday, December 14 and last until the same time on Wednesday. 

While it instructed civilians not to travel by road or river during the three day window, it maintained that its “road control units will respect civilians and their property,” but advised regular people not to mix with soldiers in order to “avoid accidents.”

Although the measures are purportedly national, analysts say they are unlikely to affect the whole country.

“In practical terms, this is a national announcement, but it has a limited impact because the ELN does not have a national presence,” Gerson Arias, investigator at the Ideas for Peace Foundation (FIP), a Colombian think-tank, told The Bogotá Post.

Arias said the bulk of the effect will be seen in areas of ELN control, especially in Colombia’s northeast and in the western departments of Cauca, Nariño and Chocó.

The last time the ELN implemented a nationwide armed strike was in 2022, with incidents across 17 departments including vehicle burnings and road blockages intended to protest the Ivan Duque administration (2018-2022).

But the ELN regularly uses smaller scale armed strikes to exert control over specific areas, usually in rural regions. Experts say that the guerrillas often use the actions as a guise to secure drug transit corridors and facilitate the movement of soldiers and contraband.

Rights groups criticize armed strikes for producing a host of deleterious effects on affected populations, with forced confinement impeding access to education, food, and healthcare. 

While the ELN’s decree did not explicitly mention U.S. threats against Venezuela, the group is known to have a presence in the country and has recorded ties with the Nicolás Maduro regime.

Much of the guerrilla group’s territory lies on the border with Venezuela and any U.S. attack on Colombia’s neighbor would also threaten the ELN, according to FIP’s Arias. 

“The ELN is well aware that it may be affected by some of the measures taken by the United States,” said the analyst.

The group has already been directly impacted by Trump’s boat bombing campaign, with U.S. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth saying an October 17 strike on an alleged drug vessel had killed three ELN members. The rebels denied the claim, insisting they do not smuggle drugs. 

The ELN’s armed strike declaration underscores the complex panorama of armed groups in the region and their ties to government, drug trafficking, and border zones. While the impact of the action is yet to be seen, the announcement shows the far-reaching consequences of the White House’s mounting military pressure in the region.

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U.S. President Donald Trump said he would not rule out land attacks in any drug producing country on Tuesday, moments after criticizing cocaine production in Colombia.

“I hear Colombia, the country of Colombia, is making cocaine. They have cocaine manufacturing plants, OK, and then they sell us their cocaine. We appreciate that very much. But yeah, anybody that’s doing that and selling it into our country is subject to attack,” Trump told reporters at the White House on Tuesday afternoon.

In response, Colombian President Gustavo Petro warned that such an attack “would be a declaration of war,” telling Trump not to damage “two centuries of diplomatic relations.”

Trump’s comments come amid mounting tensions in the Caribbean, where the U.S. has amassed forces since September. While Washington has so far only attacked alleged drug boats, killing at least 80 people, Trump said on Tuesday he plans to expand the campaign to land strikes “very soon.”

While Venezuela and the Nicolás Maduro regime have been the primary focus of the pressure campaign, Petro’s criticism of the strikes aggravated already tense relations between Bogotá and Washington. In October, the White House sanctioned Petro after he alleged the U.S. had killed a Colombian fisherman in a September boat strike, accusing the South American leader of being “an illegal drug dealer.”

“I think the U.S. has been very clear that they have a problem with Petro, but that they have a very productive relationship with Colombian institutions and particularly the security forces,” explained Elizabeth Dickinson, Deputy Director for Latin America at International Crisis Group.

“For that reason, I think it would be extremely unlikely that there would be a strike on Colombian soil,” Dickinson told The Bogotá Post.

Today is not the first time Trump has floated strikes on Colombian territory, with the president in November saying he would be “proud” to destroy cocaine factories in Colombia.

Colombia is the world’s largest producer of cocaine and the United Nations recently estimated that potential cocaine production increased by 50% in 2023. Trump has personally blamed Petro for this increase but the Colombian president cites his government’s commitment to dismantling cocaine laboratories, often with U.S. cooperation.

But the White House has also shown its ability to distinguish between Colombia’s government and its security forces. When he decertified Colombia as a drug cooperation partner in September, Trump praised the country’s army and police and said “the failure of Colombia to meet its drug control obligations over the past year rests solely with its political leadership.”

For that reason, any strike in Colombia is likely to be done in cooperation with the country’s security and intelligence agencies, according to Dickinson.

“If there were to be a unilateral strike, I think that there would be a massive diplomatic fallout,” added the analyst, “but in practice, the relationship likely would survive.”

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Electronic jamming and missiles are two of the risks identified by US regulators.

Major airlines cancelled flights from Bogotá to Caracas this week after US regulators warned of “heightened military activity” around Venezuela.

Avianca and LATAM suspended flights through Venezuelan airspace, along with at least five other airlines, as a response to a Federal Aviation Authority NOTAM (Notice to Airmen) that reported “Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) interference” around Maiquetía “Simón Bolívar” International Airport, which serves nearby Caracas.

The warnings were linked to military exercises under way in Venezuela, a response to threats from US forces massing in the Caribbean and aerial attacks on suspect drug boats, some originating from Venezuelan waters.

Colombia’s own airline regulator, Aeronáutica Civil de Colombia, repeated the FAA’s warning but said that air operators in Colombia could take “autonomous decisions” over flights to Venezuela.

On Monday several airlines were continuing direct flights from Bogotá, such as Wingo, Avior (a Venezuelan airline) and Satena (a commercial airline linked to the Colombian Ministry of Defense). Copa offered connections via Panama.

Mobile missiles

The list of airlines suspending flights continued to grow on Monday night with TAP, Turkish Airlines, Iberia and GOL being joined by Air Europa and Plus Ultra.

This came despite pushback from Venezuela’s Instituto Nacional de Aeronáutica Civil (INAC) which threatened to punish airlines for following the FAA’s recommendations.  According to a report in Aviation Online, airlines avoiding Caracas could in the long term lose access to the country’s airspace.

INAC also issued an ultimatum for airlines suspending flights “to resume services within a 48-hour period” or risk losing their landing permits.

Meanwhile the US FAA issued a more detailed FAA backgrounder clarifying that Venezuela had “at no point expressed an intent to target civil aviation”.

It did, however, seem concerned that the current context could trigger an air accident.

Venezuela, it said, had mobilized “thousands of military and reserve forces” with access to shoulder-mounted anti-aircraft missiles, or MANPADs (man-portable air defense systems), capable of downing low-altitude aircraft.

This followed comments by Maduro last month that his military were in possession of Russian-made Igla-S missiles “with no fewer than 5,000 of them in key anti-aircraft defense positions to guarantee peace, stability, and tranquility”.

Jammers and spoofers

The more immediate risk was to electronic systems, said the FAA documents, with several civil aircraft recently reporting interference while transiting Venezuela, in some cases causing “lingering effects throughout the night”.

“GNSS jammers and spoofers can affect aircraft out to 250 nautical miles [450 kilometres] and can impact a wide variety of critical communication, navigation, surveillance, and safety equipment on aircraft.”

The FAA said it would “continue to monitor the risk environment for US civil aviation operating in the region and make adjustments, as appropriate, to safeguard U.S. civil aviation”.

In fact, the US airlines stopped all direct commercial and cargo flights into Venezuela as part of an order issued in 2019, related to sanctions against the Maduro regime, widely seen as illegitimate, with the US State Department offering a bounty of US$50 million “for information leading to the arrest and / or conviction” .

Open to talks

Commentators on US – Venezuelan relations this week said that FAA announcement was not necessarily a sign of imminent US military action. Former Associated Press analyst Dan Perry told News Nation that the FAA warning was “a message that they [the FAA] expected the country to become unstable”, but did not point to a ground invasion.

For most observers, the NOTAM was a continuation of the maximum pressure strategy pursued by Washington against the Maduro regime, including a recent decision to declare the Cártel de los Soles — a disconnected group of corrupt military officers who facilitate drug shipments — as a Foreign Terrorist Organization.

Last week Maduro said he was open to talks with Washington, according to AP News, though US President Trump underscored that military action was “still on the table”.

In recent months the US has sent eight navy ships, a submarine, an aircraft carrier and 10,000 service members to the Caribbean. And since August, US firepower has killed at least 83 people in aerial attacks on speedboats suspected of running drugs; for anyone arriving in Venezuela, air is still safer than sea.

The post Airlines suspend Bogotá – Caracas routes over military build-up in the region. appeared first on The Bogotá Post.

Why such a massive U.S. military deployment off the coast of Venezuela, supposedly to combat the “Cartel of the Suns” and stop drug trafficking from Venezuela to the United States? After more than four months, the results amount to little more than a handful of small vessels destroyed – an extremely modest impact given the scale of the force deployed.

The reality is that the volume of drug trafficking transiting through Venezuela to the United States is relatively small. Venezuela is not a producer of cocaine, much less of fentanyl, most of which enters the United States via Mexico. If the real interest is not to halt drug trafficking, what then is the motivation for placing the Fourth Fleet on a war footing in the Caribbean Sea? Logic might lead one to think the U.S. interest is oil, since Venezuela holds the largest reserves in the world—but that is not it either. Today the United States is the world’s leading oil producer, at 13.4 million barrels per day, and it has proven reserves sufficient for approximately ten years, assuming no new discoveries and no improvements in recovery or technological advances—an impossible assumption.

So what, then, is the underlying issue if it is neither drugs, nor oil, nor other minerals in which Venezuela might have potential and that would be attractive to the United States?

The answer lies in a little-publicized document formally released by the White House on December 4, titled National Security Strategy 2025. While the document introduces substantial changes in relations with Europe and traditional adversaries, the most striking element is the new emphasis placed on Latin America. Of the document’s “roadmap to ensure that America remains the greatest and most successful nation in human history”, five sections are devoted exclusively to our region, positioning Latin America as a fundamental component of U.S. security – a very significant shift from earlier versions, which historically prioritized the Middle East or Asia. There is a new strategy, or if you will, a “New Monroe Doctrine,” a continuation of the 1823 Monroe Doctrine, reaffirming U.S. preeminence in the region.

“After years of neglect, the United States will once again apply and enforce the Monroe Doctrine to reestablish U.S. preeminence in the Western Hemisphere, and to protect our homeland and our access to key geographies throughout the region. We will deny non-Hemispheric competitors the ability to position forces or other threatening capabilities, or to own or control strategically vital assets, in our Hemisphere,” states the 29-page document.

Key elements of this new doctrine include: countering external influence by requiring Latin American governments to dismantle foreign military installations and divest strategic assets in exchange for aid or alliances; stopping illegal migration, including naval patrols in the Caribbean and the eastern Pacific, selective border deployments, and the use of incentives for governments to curb migratory flows; combating narco-terrorists and cartels; and sealing economic and political commitments with aligned governments in a win-win framework that would include procurement preferences and greater cooperation, among other measures, with a view to turning Latin America into a stable market for U.S. exports and a buffer against global rivals.

In recent years, China has achieved significant penetration in Latin America through its diplomacy and long-term strategy (the Belt and Road Initiative, or New Silk Road). For nearly all countries in the region, China has become the leading trading partner, displacing the United States; it is also an investor in major infrastructure projects and a lender of funds (in Venezuela’s case, a very large lender that negotiated debt repayment in oil at very low prices). In addition, China has become a major supplier of weapons and information technology.

In this context, what Washington appears to be seeking is indeed a regime change in Venezuela to counter the influence of China and Russia, but without openly announcing it in order to avoid a direct diplomatic confrontation. Trump has segmented the region into friendly regimes (Argentina, El Salvador, Ecuador, Honduras, and Guatemala), enemy regimes (Venezuela, Cuba, and Nicaragua), and regimes in limbo (Colombia and Brazil).

For Venezuela, regime change appears imminent, which would profoundly benefit Colombia, because, as Miguel Uribe Turbay said before he was assassinated, “as long as there is no freedom in Venezuela, there will be no peace in Colombia.” On the other hand, a change of government in Colombia is also approaching, and the country will have to decide which of these groups it wants to belong to—whether it repairs its relations with its traditional partner and ally, or definitively joins the group of pariah states in the region. Let us hope it is the former.

About the author: Luis Guillermo Plata served as Minister of Trade, Industry of Commerce during the government of President Álvaro Uribe Vélez, and in 2021, appointed by President Iván Duque, Ambassador of Colombia to Spain.

For a literary festival, silence can be more revealing than speech. The decision by three writers to withdraw from the 2026 Hay Festival in Cartagena over the presence of María Corina Machado, this year’s Nobel Peace Prize laureate and the most prominent figure in Venezuela’s democratic opposition, has exposed a paradox at the heart of contemporary literary culture: a professed devotion to free expression that falters when confronted with an inconvenient voice.

Hay Festival Cartagena, now in its 21st edition, is scheduled to take place from 29 January to 1 February 2026, with parallel events in Barranquilla, Medellín and a special edition in Jericó, Antioquia. Founded three decades ago in Wales and once described by Bill Clinton as “the Woodstock of the mind,” Hay has built its global reputation on the premise that literature flourishes in the presence of disagreement. Its stages have hosted figures as diverse – and divisive – as Salman Rushdie, Jonathan Safran Foer and David Goodhart, writers whose ideas have unsettled orthodoxies across continents.

Yet in Cartagena, dialogue has been recast as contamination.

The Colombian novelist Laura Restrepo, the Barranquilla-born writer Giuseppe Caputo and the Dominican activist Mikaelah Drullard announced they would not attend in protest at Machado’s invitation. Restrepo, winner of the 2004 Alfaguara Prize, had been scheduled to participate in several events, including a conversation with Indian novelist Pankaj Mishra and a session devoted to her most recent book, I Am the Dagger and I Am the Wound. In a public letter addressed to festival director Cristina de la Fuente, Restrepo described Machado’s presence as “a line” crossed.

“I must cancel my attendance at Hay Festival Cartagena 2026,” Restrepo wrote. “The reason is the participation of María Corina Machado, an active supporter of United States military intervention in Latin America.” Granting her a platform, Restrepo argued, amounted to facilitating positions hostile to regional autonomy.

Caputo echoed his reasoning on social media, announcing that “in the current context of escalating imperial violence, it is better to withdraw from a festival taking place opposite the bombarded waters of the Caribbean Sea.” Drullard, five days earlier, said she could not attend an event that “supports pro-genocide and interventionist positions through the mobilisation of those who promote them,” citing Machado’s proximity to the administration of US President Donald Trump.

What remains striking, however, is not merely the severity of these accusations but their selectivity. None of the boycott statements devotes comparable moral energy to denouncing the documented human rights abuses of Nicolás Maduro’s regime: arbitrary detentions, enforced disappearances, torture of political prisoners, or the systematic dismantling of democratic institutions. One is left to ask whether the authors’ moral outrage extends to the lived realities of Venezuelans themselves, or whether it finds expression only when filtered through the optics of geopolitics.

The irony is sharpened by the fact that the same US administration helped secure Machado’s escape from Venezuela on December 8, enabling her to arrive in Oslo hours after her daughter Ana Corina Sosa received the Nobel Peace Prize on her behalf. “When the history of our time is written, it won’t be the names of the authoritarian rulers that stand out – but the names of those who dared resist,” noted the Nobel Foundation. 

The arguments from Machado’s detractors  warrant scrutiny – and above all, debate. What they do not justify is refusal from Latin America’s self-entitled literati. A boycott replaces argument with absence, moral reasoning with pantomime. It is a gesture that confers ethical purity upon the boycotter while foreclosing the very exchange that literature has traditionally claimed to defend. This is the “line” that cannot be crossed.

The Hay Festival’s response has been characteristically diplomatic In a statement following the cancellations, organisers reaffirmed their commitment to pluralism: “We reaffirm our conviction that open, plural and constructive dialogue remains an essential tool for addressing complex realities and for defending the free exchange of ideas and freedom of expression.” They stressed that Hay “does not align itself with or endorse the opinions, positions or statements of those who participate in its activities,” while respecting the decisions of those who chose not to attend.

That insistence on neutrality, however, also reveals a deeper unease. If a literary festival must repeatedly assert its impartiality, it may be because neutrality itself has become suspect. Increasingly, festivals are asked to function as courts of moral arbitration, conferring legitimacy on some voices while quietly disqualifying others. The result is not a more just cultural sphere, but a narrower one—policed less by argument than by consensus.

The controversy has unfolded at a particularly volatile moment for Venezuela’s eight-million diaspora. Machado’s invitation coincides with a renewed escalation in US pressure in the Caribbean Sea. On Tuesday, President Trump ordered a “total and complete blockade” of all sanctioned oil tankers entering or leaving the country, targeting Caracas’s principal source of revenue. His administration also designated Maduro’s government a Foreign Terrorist Organization, accusing it of using “stolen US assets” to finance terrorism, drug trafficking and organised crime.

“Venezuela is completely surrounded by the largest armada ever assembled in the history of South America,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “It will only get bigger, and the shock to them will be like nothing they have ever seen before – until such time as they return to the United States all of the oil, land and other assets they previously stole from us.”

Against this backdrop, Machado’s high-profile presence at Hay has acquired a symbolic weight that far exceeds literary stages. Yet it is precisely at such moments that intellectual forums are tested. Fiction, after all, teaches empathy, complexity and the capacity to hold contradiction without retreat. To boycott rather than engage is to abandon that lesson – and, with it, democratical ideals.

The reputational cost to Hay Festival Cartagena may prove lasting – not because Machado was invited, but because the limits of reason and tolerance have been publicly exposed. A gathering that once prided itself on hosting difficult conversations now finds itself unsettled by the very principle on which it was founded.

And there is a final inflection. If Hay’s commitment to dialogue is grounded in a leftist agenda – if certain voices render discussion impossible – then Machado herself should reasonably question the value of her remote participation at the festival on January 30, for a scheduled conversation with Venezuelan journalist and former minister Moisés Naím.

In Cartagena, it is not Machado’s words that should concern audiences, but the intellectual impoverishment by those who chose not to speak to her at all.

The arrival of the USS Gerald Ford in Caribbean waters has raised the stakes in the tense relationship between the United States and Venezuela. The aircraft carrier – the most advanced and powerful in the U.S. Navy – traveled for more than two weeks from the Mediterranean to take up position near South America, joining a growing naval presence under the Pentagon’s Southern Command.

Washington insists the deployment supports anti-narcotics operations aimed at curbing the flow of cocaine and other drugs from Latin America into the United States. Yet the timing and scale of the buildup have raised questions among America’s allies over whether it signals a shift toward a more confrontational posture against the regime of Nicolás Maduro.

Since early September, U.S. forces have carried out at least 19 strikes against small vessels in international waters near Venezuela and Colombia – operations the Trump administration says were targeting “cartel terrorists.” According to Pentagon announcements, some 76 people have been killed since the first narco-boat was destroyed by a missile strike on September 2.

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth – branded as “Secretary of War” following President Donald Trump’s renaming of the Defense Department – has become the public face of the campaign. “We’re protecting the homeland and taking out the cartel terrorists who wish to harm our people,” Hegseth said in late October, describing the strikes as “a message of deterrence.”

Trump has claimed that some of the targeted vessels were manned by members of the Venezuelan criminal network Tren de Aragua (TdeA), while others were moving narcotics for Colombia’s illegal armed groups, including Gulf Clan and National Liberation Army (ELN) guerrilla.

As the U.S. Navy reinforces its presence in the Caribbean with fighter jets, Marines, and drones, the deployment of the Ford marks the most significant show of American force in the region since the 1989 invasion of Panama. Venezuela, in turn, is on high alert, mobilizing the Bolivarian Armed Forces, National Guard, and civilian militia recruits in preparation for a potential confrontation.

The prospect of an assault on Venezuelan territory no longer feels entirely remote, even though Trump has publicly downplayed any immediate plans for direct intervention. “I wouldn’t be inclined to say that I would do that… I’m not gonna tell you what I’m gonna do with Venezuela,” he stated recently to CBS’s 60 Minutes.

After the Senate voted down a measure that would have required congressional authorization for military action, Republican lawmakers described the result as a “green light” to strike land targets within Venezuela. The Gerald Ford’s presence suggests Washington may not simply be policing drug routes – it is projecting supremacy. With such immense firepower now concentrated near Venezuela, retreating without one tangible result – the arrest of Maduro – could prove politically costly for The White House.

If the ultimate objective is regime change – hoping that Maduro’s government will implode under pressure – the warship could soon find itself running out of steam to remain in the Caribbean. For the Trump administration, time and strategy are now of the essence. Deploying billion-dollar hardware to capture a leader with a US$50 million bounty on his head risks appearing, to Maduro’s allies in Moscow, as an expensive bluff – or hollow show of force.

Should the so-called “Trump Doctrine” falter in the Caribbean, Latin America’s leftist leaders, most notably Colombia’s Gustavo Petro, will capitalize on Washington’s setback, using it to galvanize domestic support ahead of the 2026 elections.

International reaction to the missile strikes has ranged from muted concern to outright condemnation. The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk, warned that the attacks “have no justification in international law,” echoing similar criticisms from close U.S. allies including the United Kingdom, France, Netherlands, and to a tarnished degree, Colombia.

CNN reported on Wednesday that the United Kingdom has suspended certain intelligence-sharing with the Pentagon fearing “complicity” in the Caribbean operations. London’s official response – “it is our longstanding policy not to comment on intelligence matters” – only underscores the unease. Both the  Netherlands and France maintain a military presence in the Antilles, and claim that shared data could be used in operations that violate human rights.

In Bogotá, President Gustavo Petro, one of Washington’s fiercest critics on drug policy, announced that Colombia would follow the UK’s example and suspend communications between its security forces and U.S. agencies “as long as missile attacks on boats in the Caribbean persist.” Petro added that “the fight against drugs must be subordinated to the human rights of the Caribbean people.”

On Wednesday, U.S Secretary of State Marco Rubio rebuked the European position, stating: “I find it interesting all these countries want us to send nuclear-capable Tomahawk missiles to defend Europe. But when the United States positions aircraft carriers in our hemisphere, where we live, somehow that’s a problem.” He went on to affirm that the European Union does not get to “determine what international law is.”

While Washington frames the campaign as a continuation of the now centuries-old “War on Drugs,” Latin America’s left-leaning governments warn that it risks destabilizing the region and alienating partners at a moment when cooperation is crucial to tackle migration, organized crime, and environmental issues.

For now, the USS Gerald Ford will remain in the Caribbean – a floating fortress and symbol of American deterrence. Its presence projects strength but also uncertainty. Unless Washington clarifies its endgame, its most powerful warship could end up reviving an old question: how far is the United States willing to go in its pursuit of democracy beyond its shores – and at what cost to the stability of a hemisphere it has long abandoned?