The United States has announced plans to provide $1 billion in security assistance to Colombia's new right-wing president, Abelardo De La Espriella, who was sworn in on Friday with a combative pledge to eradicate drug trafficking and dismantle armed groups. The US State Department said it intended to work with Congress to approve the package "as a cornerstone of this renewed partnership" to support shared security goals — a declaration that came within hours of De La Espriella delivering his inaugural address to hundreds of soldiers at the Pichincha Battalion military base in Cali, Colombia's southwestern salsa capital.
In a break with tradition, De La Espriella chose Cali — a city that has endured repeated guerrilla attacks in recent years — rather than Congress in the capital, Bogotá, for his inauguration, which took place under the protection of 11,000 troops and an anti-drone system. The 48-year-old lawyer, who holds dual US and Colombian citizenship and received Donald Trump's public endorsement before the runoff, used his 75-minute speech to declare that "the option of dialogue is completely exhausted" — a pointed rejection of his predecessor's peace talks with armed groups. "Members of criminal gangs and narco-terrorist groups have two choices: submit to the rule of law or face the determined response of the Colombian state," he told assembled troops. His first announced act as president was joining the Shield of the Americas, Trump's regional anti-cartel alliance.
De La Espriella's narrow victory — by less than one percentage point — ended four years under Gustavo Petro, Colombia's first-ever leftist president, who did not attend the ceremony and has disputed the result without providing evidence of fraud. Petro's attempts to negotiate peace with the country's patchwork of armed groups — once ideological but now largely focused on cocaine trafficking and other illicit trades — are widely seen as having failed; analysts note that gangs used government truces as cover to expand. Hundreds of protesters demonstrated peacefully in Bogotá and Barranquilla on inauguration day, with defeated leftist senator Iván Cepeda calling for peaceful civil disobedience.
De La Espriella's agenda is sweeping: he has pledged to shrink the state by up to 40%, revive Colombia's oil and gas sector, build "mega-prisons," and eradicate coca crops "by all means," including aerial herbicides. He also plans to lower taxes for the wealthy and has spoken of forging a military alliance with the United States and Israel. He faces a divided Congress where he lacks a majority, and analysts caution that many of his most ambitious proposals will need legislative backing and could be watered down.
The aid package, dubbed "Plan Colombia II" by De La Espriella himself, draws a deliberate parallel to the multibillion-dollar US-Colombia security agreement of the 2000s that succeeded in weakening major armed groups but also generated serious allegations of human rights abuses. His inauguration was attended by Argentine President Javier Milei, FIFA president Gianni Infantino, and a US delegation led by acting Attorney General Todd Blanche — a lineup that underscores De La Espriella's place within a broader rightward shift sweeping Latin America, from Argentina and Chile to Ecuador and Panama, driven by voter frustration over weak economies and rising crime. Whether his government can deliver on its promises remains an open question. "This government has a lot to prove," one Cali resident told AFP. "A lot was said during the campaign."