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Donald Trump celebrated this Monday the victory of Abelardo de la Espriella in the second round of the presidential elections in Colombia with a message on Truth Social in which he referred to him by his nickname and proclaimed him the new leader of the South American country.
“Congratulations to 'El Tigre' Abelardo de la Espriella, the new president of Colombia! It was a great honor for me to have supported him, and I look forward to working together to build a strong relationship between Colombia and the United States, which will bring new levels of greatness to both countries,” wrote Trump on his social media at 3:21 PM.
Trump's support for De la Espriella was not improvised.
On June 3, he described him as a "smart, strong, and determined" leader in his first supportive post, and on June 10, he pledged the "full support and strength" of the United States if the candidate won the runoff, while portraying his rival Iván Cepeda as "a radical leftist Marxist."
The Secretary of State Marco Rubio also joined in the congratulations.
Rubio called De la Espriella on Sunday and posted on X that "the best days for Colombia are yet to come," promising cooperation on regional security, halting irregular migration to the United States, and strengthening economic ties.
De la Espriella's victory was much closer than the polls had anticipated, which gave him a lead of between five and seven points.
With 99.58% of the polls counted, the candidate from Defenders of the Fatherland received 49.66% of the votes—approximately 12.9 million votes—against Cepeda's 48.69%, with a difference of just about 250,000 votes.
Gustavo Petro refused to acknowledge the preliminary count, denouncing "many irregularities" and demanding to wait for the official tally, a stance he had already taken after the first round on May 31 and which has no precedent in Colombian democratic history.
The observation missions of the OAS and the European Union dismissed the accusations of fraud.
The OAS stated that the day went by “without public order disturbances,” while the EU asserted that “there has been no fraud.”
The elected senator Andrés Forero accused Petro of "staging a coup," while congressman Juan Carlos Lozada warned that if the outgoing president maintains that stance, "the country will go up in flames."
De la Espriella will assume the presidency on August 7, 2026, bringing an end to four years of Petro's administration, the first leftist president in the history of Colombia. The new president is a criminal lawyer and businessman from Bogotá with no previous experience in public office, and his agenda includes a tough stance on crime, the end of Petro's "Total Peace," and a "second Plan Colombia" with U.S. military support based on drones and artificial intelligence.
In foreign policy, De la Espriella proposes the diplomatic isolation of Cuba and Venezuela, and even suggested that Cuba should become a Free Associated State of the United States, referring to the island as "the head of the serpent of communism in Latin America".
The victory is part of an unprecedented political realignment in Latin America, where almost all the region's presidents are now in Trump's orbit, following similar victories in Chile with José Antonio Kast and Honduras with Nasry Asfura, and the continued hold on power by allies such as Javier Milei in Argentina, Nayib Bukele in El Salvador, and Daniel Noboa in Ecuador.
Colombia, which had been excluded from the "Shield of the Americas" held in March in Miami due to its insufficient anti-narcotics cooperation under Petro, is now joining that regional framework.
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