Colombia Asks Trump to Suspend Tariffs After Quake
Colombia Asks Trump to Suspend Tariffs After Quake
The News
Colombia's new president, Abelardo de la Espriella, asked President Donald Trump on Saturday to temporarily suspend US tariffs on Colombian goods, saying his country's business owners need relief after a deadly earthquake.
The 7.4-magnitude quake struck Monday, killing at least 294 people and damaging or destroying tens of thousands of buildings, according to Colombia's National Unit for Disaster Risk Management.
Reconstruction is expected to cost roughly $6.4 billion. The US is Colombia's top export market.
Timeline
US tariffs on Colombian products rise from 10 percent to 12.5 percent, with a few exceptions including coffee and oil. The renewed tariffs came after the Trump administration's legal defeat over its "Liberation Day" tariffs and the refund of $100 billion in duties struck down by the Supreme Court; the White House said the new round targeted nearly every US trading partner over failures to uphold anti-forced-labor measures.
De la Espriella takes office, weeks after a close June victory over leftist Ivan Cepeda in a race in which Trump endorsed him.
The 7.4-magnitude earthquake hits Colombia.
De la Espriella says he spoke with Trump for 10 minutes and asked him to "temporarily suspend" the tariffs.
Reactions
De la Espriella described the call as "very friendly and cordial."
"I told him that we have a huge challenge ahead: rebuilding Colombia amid the extremely difficult and apocalyptic economic situation that I inherited," the Colombian president said.
Colombia's finance minister, Miguel Gomez, said the government is not yet considering raising taxes to cover the roughly $6.4 billion needed for reconstruction, local media reported.
The White House has not publicly responded to the request.
More
De la Espriella, a millionaire lawyer turned politician, has moved quickly to align Bogota with Washington. Since taking office he has joined the "Shield of the Americas," an anti-cartel alliance headed by Trump that includes multiple South American nations, and he has said he plans to forge a military alliance with the US and Israel to strengthen Colombia's long-running fight against armed groups.
That makes the tariff request a test of whether a friendly government gets different treatment than the rest of the trading partners hit in the July round.
What's Next
The decision sits with Trump, who has not said whether he will grant a suspension or how long one might last. Colombia's government is still tallying the damage and has not settled on how it will pay for reconstruction.
Poll question for readers: Should the US suspend tariffs on a country hit by a natural disaster?
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