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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On December 6, during a speech to commemorate the 1928 “Banana Massacre,” President Gustavo Petro recognized Colombian state complicity in the massacre, which has become a milestone of the labor rights movement in the country. 

“The president at the time [Miguel Abadía Méndez] ordered General [Carlos] Cortés Vargas to fire upon the bodies of thousands of unarmed people. The United States ambassador at the time [Jefferson Caffery] stated in a cable that at least one thousand people were killed (…) History was unable to determine the exact number,” said Petro.  

On December 5 and 6, 1928, workers on the United Fruit Company banana plantation in the Caribbean coastal town of Ciénaga were striking poor conditions when Colombia’s national army – in collusion with the U.S. fruit company – killed workers in an attempt to quell the strike.

“I have the honor to report that the Bogotá representative of the United Fruit Company told me yesterday that the total number of strikers killed by the Colombian military exceeded 1,000,” wrote then-U.S. Ambassador to Colombia Jefferson Caffery. United Fruit Company is known today as Chiquita Brands International. 

The president also reflected on what he deemed similarities between U.S.-Colombia relations 97 years ago and today. 

“It seems that much of what happened then is happening today,” said Petro. “There was a threat of invasion of Colombia by the United States. They threatened that if the national government at that time, led by the conservative Miguel Abadía Méndez, supported the banana workers, there would be an invasion.” 

He went on to mention that it “seems that things are similar today” with the threat of a U.S. invasion “within our own country, if the president doesn’t say or do what they want.” 

In addition to calling Petro a drug trafficker and sanctioning him, the Trump administration has killed at least 95 people – some of them Colombian – in boat strikes off the Pacific and Caribbean coasts, and has even threatened to strike drug installations within Colombian territory. 

Remembering the Banana Massacre, nearly 100 years on 

This year’s remembrance event featured a pop-up museum about the massacre; floral offerings for victims; and a lot of music, including a performance of “Las Bananeras” by Leo Infante.

Discussion and community forums were also organized by the Ministry of Labor, the Escuela Nacional Sindical (National Union School), and the CONARE, which is the committee created to represent the union movement in the collective reparation process as a victimized group in the Colombian armed conflict.

The Bogotá Post sat in on some of the sessions where participants discussed memory, lived experiences, reparations, and violence.

On the main stage, President Petro and members of his cabinet listened to various speakers, including Mildreth Maldonado Pava, representing the descendants of victims and survivors of the massacre. Her grandfather was a survivor.

“It is difficult, but not impossible, to know the truth,” said Maldonado. “I am here fulfilling a dream that has been waiting for nearly 100 years – a dream that hurts, but that has patiently endured amid so many other pains.”

When it was his turn to address the crowd, President Petro called on security forces to respect the Constitution and human dignity.

“The public armed forces of any country in the world obey their president only as long as the Constitution is respected; but when an order from a president – whoever that president may be, anywhere in the world – goes against the Constitution of their own country or goes against the Constitution of humanity itself … no member of the military should obey such orders.”

Over Dorado Cardona, general secretary of The Central Union of Workers (CUT) and a spokesperson for the union and workers movement, highlighted the importance of reparation of the union movement as a collective victim as a key commitment for the current government.

“We, as the union movement, say, ‘we only die when we are forgotten,’” Dorado bellowed.

Towards collective reparation

Colombia remains one of the most dangerous countries in the world for labor activists. There have been 15,481 registered acts of violence against Colombian trade unionists between 1970 and 2021, according to Sinderh, a database from Colombia’s National Union School.

Strikingly, 63% of all trade unionist murders worldwide between 1971 and 2023 occurred in Colombia, according to the Ministry of Labor with figures provided by the International Labor Organization (ILO).

In Colombia, Collective Reparation processes – distinct from reparations to individual victims of the internal conflict – constitute a comprehensive route to remedy the harms suffered by groups affected by the armed conflict. 

Many in the country argue that given all the anti-unionist violence suffered, there remains an outstanding debt to the union movement as a whole. Petro’s Government was the first to recognize the movement as a subject of Collective reparation in 2023. 

“The union movement has been deeply harmed,” Nadiezhda Natazha Henríquez Chacín, a magistrate for the Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP), Colombia’s transitional justice mechanism, told The Bogota Post. 

“These years of war have almost completely destroyed it down to its foundations (…) Union struggles have won labor rights, yet the movement has been persecuted and stigmatized,” the Ciénaga-born judge added.

For the union movement, the difficulties with the entities arising in the collective reparation process contradict the significant effort the government has made through its social reforms.

“It is not understood that the reparation of the union movement must go beyond administrative measures (…) The essential Collective Reparation Plan must be guaranteed as a public policy that extends beyond any single Government and becomes a State policy,” Dorado Cardona, the union leader, stated.

“It is necessary to rebuild, to transform; this work of memory is essential, but it is also a form of transformative reparation,” the magistrate remarked.

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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.

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