On Sunday, Colombians will go to the polls for the first round of their presidential elections, a race that could radically reshape Colombia’s relations with the United States at a moment of political turmoil and polarization in Latin America.
The key contenders include the ruling party’s candidate, Iván Cepeda; conservative outsider Abelardo De la Espriella; and Paloma Valencia of former President Álvaro Uribe’s center-right party, Centro Democrático. Currently, no candidate is polling over 50%, so a runoff between the top two candidates is projected for June 21, 2026. This election comes within the context of heightened concerns over political violence, with the civil society Electoral Observation Mission (MOE) reporting 565 acts of political violence since January 2025. This has included the assassination of a presidential hopeful, kidnappings , attacks targeting candidates and campaign staff, vandalism of campaign offices, and death threats . Apart from rising violence in the country, campaign issues include great economic discontent, the deeply polarized legacy of President Gustavo Petro, and tense diplomatic relations with the U.S. over anti-narcotics efforts and security policy. The leading candidates present three distinct visions for Colombia’s future. Iván Cepeda, senator for the Historic Pact party, is the former leader of the Movement for Victims of State Crimes and a former peace negotiator involved in the National Liberation Army (ELN) guerilla peace dialogues. He plans to advance peace and negotiations with illegal armed groups and focuses on truth and reconciliation. Cepeda proposes advancing Petro’s agrarian reforms, pursuing an energy transition to curb climate change and investing in education. His security proposal goes beyond an exclusively military response, focusing on improving human rights and dismantling the financial infrastructure of criminal groups. He proposes an autonomous, peace-oriented foreign policy that emphasizes Latin American integration, migrant protection, global anti-militarism, and strict adherence to international law. Aberlardo de la Espriella, the candidate for Defensores de la Patria, is a conservative outsider and criminal lawyer with a controversial past who describes himself as not being a politician. His security proposal mirrors that of El Salvador’s Nayib Bukele, and his economic model that of Argentina’s Javier Milei. He would end peace negotiations and tackle narcotrafficking and organized crime with military force. De la Espriella supports fracking, new oil contracts, and cutting taxes for the private sector. He’d advance a Plan Colombia 2.0 that is aligned with the Trump administration’s anti-narcotics strategy and would resume aerial fumigation of coca crops that was halted by the Petro administration. Paloma Valencia, a senator and prominent member of the center-right opposition party, proposes a Plan 30-30 for security, which would recruit 30,000 new members each to the military and police and increase the defense budget to 4% of Colombia’s GDP. Valencia would end the peace dialogues, militarize insecure areas, and resume aerial fumigation. She proposed opening a 22,000-capacity penitentiary and prison with 19,000 spots and restricting social protests. She further proposes that Colombia participate in the U.S. plan to reconstruct Venezuela, and she wants to request a $50 billion loan from the U.S. to refinance Colombia’s external debt. Similar to de la Espriella, Valencia wants a Plan Colombia 2.0 to combat narco-trafficking. Both Valencia and de la Espriella propose including Colombia in the Shield of the Americas , created by the Trump administration, and have engaged with administration officials and Republican members of Congress. The results of Colombia’s 2026 presidential race will have a significant impact on U.S.-Colombia relations and the Trump administration’s strategic goals in Latin America. Since Petro took office in 2022, the long-standing bipartisan strategic relationship between the two countries has faced growing strains, driven in part by tensions between Petro and a group of Republican lawmakers, particularly from Florida, who have used anti-Petro rhetoric to appeal to conservative Latino voters. Since January 2025, Trump and Petro have repeatedly clashed on X, resulting in the temporary recall of ambassadors and threats of tariffs. Petro also strongly criticized U.S. boat strikes in the Caribbean and Pacific that have killed at least 196 people to date. The Petro administration’s decision in May 2025 to join China’s Belt and Road Initiative further widened the rift with Washington. In response, the Treasury Department sanctioned Petro and others, and the U.S. decertified Colombia for failing to meet its counternarcotics commitments. (Decertification can lead to U.S. foreign assistance suspension, the U.S. blocking Colombia from obtaining international loans, and visa cancellations.) Things came to a head last December, when Trump warned that Petro “could be next” after the U.S. overthrow of Venezuela’s Nicolas Maduro. Tensions cooled off after the two men met at the White House on February 7. But no sanctions were lifted, Colombia remains decertified, and no new aid for Colombia has been announced. (Colombia saw a massive reduction in U.S. assistance as part of the elimination of USAID and overall foreign aid cuts in 2025.) The Trump administration and Republicans in Congress are looking to the Colombian elections in hopes that the next president in Bogota will restore the strong strategic relationship with the U.S. that existed before Petro. This includes creating alliances of like-minded conservative leaders from Latin America and the Caribbean, as was reflected in the Shield of the Americas Summit held in Doral, Florida, in March. While framed as a way to build a multinational military partnership against drug cartels and transnational criminal organizations, the summit excluded leftist governments in the region, including Colombia — where most of the world’s cocaine is produced.
The Trump administration’s 2025 National Security Strategy advances a “Trump Corollary” to the Monroe Doctrine aimed at restoring U.S. primacy in the Western Hemisphere through an “enlist and expand” approach focused on curbing irregular migration, weakening cartels, and nearshoring manufacturing. The strategy also reorients the region toward competition with extra-hemispheric powers such as China and Russia, using economic pressure, tariffs, and expanded military engagement to secure supply chains and strengthen regional partnerships. Similarly, the 2026 National Defense Strategy places greater emphasis on the Western Hemisphere, prioritizing efforts to combat drug trafficking and transnational criminal organizations, limit China’s influence, and deepen regional defense cooperation. Given Colombia’s regional importance to the United States, the Trump administration may try to shape Colombia’s elections, as it has in Argentina and Honduras. So far, the administration has presented its role as one of monitoring and promoting transparency. At the U.S. Embassy's request, the National Electoral Council authorized a U.S. election observation mission of 86 government officials, who will be deployed across 15 areas to assess transparency, security, and voting in high-risk locations during both presidential rounds. Regardless of the results this coming Sunday, and in the likely second round in June, the next president should support peace and inclusion policies in the country, while maintaining a respectful diplomatic relationship with the U.S. For Cepeda, that may be easier said than done. A victory for Petro’s successor will most likely mean continued U.S.-Colombia tensions, particularly as Trump threatens regime change in Cuba and strives to push Latin American politics to the right. Meanwhile, if either of Cepeda’s challengers wins, Trump could gain a major new ally in Latin America — and a willing partner for implementing his “Donroe Doctrine.”