BOGOTA — US President Donald Trump inserted himself into Colombia’s presidential campaign on Tuesday night, by endorsing Abelardo de la Espriella, a right-wing lawyer, who will face off against leftist senator Ivan Cepeda in a runoff election later this month.
“The results of this Election are very important to the future of Colombia and its relationship to the United States,” Trump wrote on Truth Social in a post full of praise for De La Espriella, whom he referred to by his campaign moniker, “El Tigre,” or the Tiger.
“Because of his tremendous accomplishments in life, and his political support for me, personally, it is my Honor to give Abelardo my Complete and Total Endorsement.”
De la Espriella and Cepeda will head to a June 21 runoff vote after Sunday’s tight first round. De la Espriella, who has never held elected office, garnered nearly 44% of the votes, while Cepeda, a long-time senator and activist, garnered under 41%.
Trump, whose support of like-minded leaders has helped to fuel a right-wing wave in Latin America, also characterized the candidate’s rival in the runoff as a “Radical Left Marxist.”
Cepeda’s campaign said it did not have an immediate response.
On Tuesday night, De la Espriella thanked Trump for his “decisive support,” promising to strengthen US-Colombia relations “like never before.”
“It’s fundamental to understand that the United States is decisive to fight crime, narcoterrorism and liberate Colombia once and for all from so much pain and so much violence,” he said in an interview with a Colombian news outlet.
An endorsement from the US president, which in the past was all but unthinkable, has become a wild card in elections in the region. Last year, Trump endorsed a right-wing candidate in Honduras’s election who went on to win. He also supported the party of the Argentine president, Javier Milei, in a decisive midterm election.
Trump’s chosen candidate in Colombia is a 47-year-old criminal defense lawyer who has never held office. After spending much of his career in Florida, and more recently, in Florence, Italy, De la Espriella returned to Colombia last year to run for his country’s highest post, The New York Times reported.
He has pitched himself as an outsider in the vein of Trump, an efficient cost-cutter like Milei and a hard-liner on security similar to El Salvador’s Nayib Bukele. That message has proved to be potent to a population alarmed by a resurgent armed conflict and a rise in violent and organized crime.
De la Espriella rose late in the campaign, overcoming an establishment candidate on the right who had counted on the support of some of Colombia’s most powerful politicians.
Leftist Colombian President Gustavo Petro, who has had a tumultuous relationship with the American leader, criticized Trump’s endorsement of De la Espriella in a post on social media on Tuesday night.
“When one country interferes in another country’s decisions, freedom dies,” Petro said, according to Reuters.
Source: Saudi Gazette