Three days after the ceremony, a magnitude 7.4 earthquake hit western Colombia and rewrote the agenda entirely. The inheritance came first, though, and it is the reason he is president at all.

The numbers that elected him

The Centro de Paz y Seguridad (Center for Peace and Security) at Universidad Externado counted 40,663 homicides in Colombia between August 2022 and August 2025 — Gustavo Petro’s first three years in office — an annual average of 13,554. Over the equivalent stretch under Iván Duque, the figure was 37,795, averaging 12,598 a year, and under Juan Manuel Santos it was 36,646, averaging 12,215. El Tiempo published the center’s findings in December 2025.

Under Paz Total (Total Peace), the policy that opened simultaneous negotiations with practically every armed and criminal structure in the country, those structures grew. Infobae reported a military intelligence count showing membership rising from 15,120 in December 2022 to 25,278 by July 2025, an increase of 10,158, concentrated in the Nariño Pacific, Catatumbo, Cauca, Bajo Cauca Antioqueño and Arauca — zones, in Infobae’s words, of weak institutional presence. The Fundación Ideas para la Paz (Ideas for Peace Foundation), working from the same count, puts 48 percent of that total under arms and the remaining 52 percent in support networks. By July 2026 the figure had reached 28,802, a 90 percent increase across the Petro years, according to El Colombiano. That is not an interpretation of the policy; it is the count.

The sharpest version of that failure, for a business, is extortion. Ministry of Defense data reviewed by La FM shows 2,914 extortion complaints filed in the first three months of 2026, the highest quarterly figure in 10 years. Gen. William Rincón, director of the National Police, told La FM that more complaints do not automatically mean more crimes, and put the year-over-year increase at 13.1 percent for the same period. La FM identifies merchants, shopkeepers, cattlemen and small business owners as the standing victims of that economy.

A mandate Medellín paid for

De la Espriella won the June 21, 2026, runoff with 12,959,542 votes against 12,708,712 for Iván Cepeda — a margin of 250,830 votes, which El Tiempo put at 0.96 percentage points of all ballots cast, blank and null included, in the Registraduría Nacional del Estado Civil (National Civil Registry) preliminary count. MercoPress called it the narrowest margin in a Colombian runoff in 32 years. In the same El Tiempo breakdown, Medellín gave him 819,285 votes against 421,839 for Cepeda — a net margin of about 397,000, larger than the entire national margin, out of a single metropolitan area. Bogotá went the other way, 2,235,514 to 1,933,243. World Population Review puts Bogotá at roughly 7.9 million against 2.5 million for Medellín, so the smaller city delivered the decisive block. Take Medellín out of the arithmetic and Abelardo de la Espriella is not the president of Colombia.

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That is arithmetic, not commentary, and Medellín knows it. The city will expect a return, and an itemized one: the international airport expansion, highway concessions, hard security and continued support for the business climate that made it a destination for nearshoring and technology investment. That is the first political claim on the new government, and it arrives ahead of everything else in the program.

The inauguration was supposed to happen somewhere else. De la Espriella wanted to be sworn in at a military garrison in Popayán, and the Senate approved moving Congress to Cauca for it. Petro killed that on July 24, 2026: “I give no permission to any garrison or military establishment to make itself ready for the swearing-in of any official of the civil power in Colombia,” he said, in a statement carried by El Colombiano that extended to the Army, the Navy and the National Police. La Silla Vacía traced what followed: the House approved the switch to Cali 117 to 7 on July 28, the Senate followed on July 29 by 58 to 30 with 15 abstentions, and de la Espriella’s team cited volcanic activity around Popayán, whose Guillermo León Valencia airport had been shut more than a third of the preceding 20 days. Pacto Histórico (Historic Pact) lost its own blocking motion 114 to 6 and then announced it would not attend the ceremony at all. Per MercoPress, Congress convened at Universidad Santiago de Cali’s arena, Senate President Honorio Henríquez placed the presidential sash on him, and de la Espriella then moved to the Pichincha Battalion, where he spoke to armed forces and police commanders for more than an hour. The same report lists King Felipe VI of Spain among the attendees, along with Javier Milei of Argentina, Daniel Noboa of Ecuador, Santiago Peña of Paraguay and José Raúl Mulino of Panama, with José Antonio Kast of Chile there for bilateral meetings on the sidelines, and records Cepeda ending the day by announcing a shadow cabinet.

Worth noting, because it complicates the symbolism: Cali voted against him, 682,166 to 443,047, and so did Barranquilla, 375,178 to 309,652 — the city he wants recognized as an alternate capital. That designation is not ordinary legislation. Infobae laid out the route: Article 322 of the Constitution makes Bogotá the sole capital and Capital District, so recognizing Barranquilla requires an acto legislativo (constitutional amendment) — eight debates across two rounds, against the four an ordinary law needs. “The forgetting is over, the neglect is over, the centralist abandonment is over,” de la Espriella said in announcing it, per Semana. He has cast it as a break with Rafael Núñez: “A hundred and forty years ago Colombia did not have a president from the Caribbean. The last was President Núñez. But I am not going to make Núñez’s mistake. I am not going to defend the centralism that President Núñez defended. I am going to defend decentralization,” he said, in remarks reported by Infobae. The physical seat is already going up: El Heraldo reported that the Army’s Second Brigade at the Batallón Paraíso will house it, with the Atlántico governor’s office under Eduardo Verano executing the works. El Tiempo counts three regional seats in all: Barranquilla, plus the Centro Cultural de Cali, offered by Mayor Alejandro Eder and plaqued as an alternate presidential seat, and Medellín’s Palacio de la Cultura Rafael Uribe Uribe. In Bogotá itself the presidency moves to the Palacio de San Carlos, which currently houses the Foreign Ministry, while the Casa de Nariño becomes a museum open to the public.

His diagnosis is sound, and the problem is older than any of us: power in Colombia has been concentrated in the capital since independence, and the coast, the Pacific, the plains and the south have paid for it. Whether this becomes an actual redistribution of investment and institutional capacity, or a series of well-photographed ceremonies in cities that did not vote for him, will take a year or more to read.

A mandate without a legislature

The Consejo Nacional Electoral (National Electoral Council) granted legal status to de la Espriella’s Defensores de la Patria (Defenders of the Homeland) on August 3, 2026 — six magistrates in favor, one against and two absent — on the strength of the 12,960,166 votes certified to the ticket in the final scrutiny — 624 more than the preliminary count above — or 49.66 percent, nearly 14 times the 3 percent threshold the law requires, as Infobae reported. He was inaugurated four days later. The party holds no seats in either chamber; Infobae puts its first electoral outing at the regional elections of October 2027, and the next congressional cycle is March 2030.

The Congress he has to work with was elected on March 8, 2026, and seated on July 20, 2026. El País of Cali reported Pacto Histórico rising from the 20 Senate seats it won in 2022 to 25, and Centro Democrático (Democratic Center) from 13 to 17. In the House, La República counted 183 seats, with Pacto Histórico again the largest bloc at 41, Centro Democrático second at 30 and the Partido Liberal (Liberal Party) at 24, one Cundinamarca seat still disputed. The largest single bloc in both chambers belongs to the coalition he just defeated.

That matters more than the usual first-100-days handicapping, because the marquee items all need a legislature. Abolishing the Instituto Nacional Penitenciario y Carcelario (National Penitentiary and Prison Institute), or INPEC, would require statutory change and a redefinition of the state’s role in prison administration. The alternate capital requires a constitutional amendment. So would eliminating the Jurisdicción Especial para la Paz (Special Jurisdiction for Peace), or JEP, a tribunal created by constitutional amendment under the 2016 peace accord. What a president can do alone is issue decrees and direct the security forces, and that is what week one consisted of.

The traditional right cannot rescue him, because it is coming apart at exactly the moment he needs it. Centro Democrático’s candidate, Paloma Valencia, won the right-wing inter-party consultation in March 2026 with more than 3 million votes and had been polling near 20 percent going into the May 31, 2026, first round. A Guarumo poll published by El Tiempo had her at 19.9 percent in March 2026, up from 6.9 percent in January. She finished the May 31 first round with 1,639,668 votes, 6.92 percent, behind de la Espriella’s 43.74 percent and Cepeda’s 40.90 percent, per El Espectador’s tally of the Registraduría count — ending roughly where she had started the year. A party founded in 2013 to be the wall against the Colombian left finished third, behind both the man who beat it and the left coalition it exists to stop.

María Fernanda Cabal left the party in January 2026 along with her husband, José Félix Lafaurie, who heads the Federación Colombiana de Ganaderos (Colombian Federation of Cattle Ranchers), telling Infobae that the internal process which selected Valencia over her was irregular. In August 2026, she went further and filed for an escisión (a formal legal split) of the party. “No party can survive when it renounces the ideas that gave it origin,” she wrote, in remarks also carried by Infobae. Valencia, for her part, told a meeting in Antioquia that “we have to understand very clearly what party we are in. This is not a right-wing party.”

Álvaro Uribe’s own legal position complicates the popular version of this story. Judge Sandra Liliana Heredia sentenced him on August 1, 2025, to 12 years of house detention and a fine of $3.444 billion COP for procedural fraud and bribery in a criminal proceeding, the first former Colombian president convicted by the ordinary courts after waiving his congressional privilege in 2020. “The damage was colossal,” she said, as El Espectador reported. The Tribunal Superior de Bogotá (Bogotá Superior Court) acquitted him on October 21, 2025, finding he had committed neither offense. Infobae reported that the court held the interceptions of Uribe’s calls with his attorney Diego Cadena to be illegal and threw them out, and found contradictions and personal motives in the accounts of the former paramilitaries whose testimony carried the case. The Fiscalía General de la Nación (Attorney General’s Office) and the accredited victims filed cassation appeals with the Corte Suprema de Justicia (Supreme Court of Justice) on January 13, 2026, as Infobae reported, and Infobae also reported the court halting the proceeding in February 2026 over a recusal motion against one of its magistrates. Convicted, then un-convicted, with the final word still pending.

Regardless of how that ends, the political cost has landed. Centro Democrático was built around Uribe’s personal ability to anoint a candidate and deliver the votes behind them, and the legal fight, his age and the unpopularity of the Duque administration have drained that ability. The loyalists still worship the man, but his base is aging along with him and that circle is visibly shrinking. Younger conservatives who were not around to admire his successes against the guerrillas went a different direction this cycle, in some respects further right than Uribe and his movement.

“The peace commissioner’s office is finished, because there will be no more false peace processes in my government.” — Abelardo de la Espriella, president of Colombia

The program, and what it will cost

On his first day, de la Espriella signed the decree creating the Bloque de Defensa para la Seguridad Urbana (Urban Security Defense Block), which he had announced on July 5, 2026, while convening the mayors of Bogotá, Medellín, Cali, Barranquilla and Bucaramanga. “To issue effective measures matched to the needs of the worst-affected cities, I am convening the mayors of Bogotá, Medellín, Cali, Barranquilla and Bucaramanga so that, starting from their needs, we can create the largest urban security operation in Colombia,” he said, in remarks reported by El Tiempo. Bogotá Mayor Carlos Galán backed it in the same account: “the country needs to redefine its criminal policy. Far from rewarding criminal gangs, we must punish them. Anyone who commits a violent crime or reoffends in criminal conduct that harms the lives of others belongs in prison, not on the streets.” Medellín Mayor Federico Gutiérrez answered, in a post carried by El Heraldo, “We are ready, President Abelardo de la Espriella… The only ones who should feel afraid are the criminals.” His inauguration address added a tax reform aimed at evasion, elimination of the wealth tax, publication of an official list of narco-terrorist organizations, coca eradication and financial inclusion for informal workers, according to MercoPress.

The centerpiece of the longer program is a set of maximum-security megacárceles (mega-prisons) modeled on the Terrorism Confinement Center, or CECOT, built by Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele. Speaking to Caracol Radio in March 2026, in an interview Infobae wrote up, he described “ten mega-prisons in the middle of nowhere, where not even the signal of the Holy Cross gets in,” to be built with private capital in exchange for concessions of “fifty, seventy, eighty years, whatever it takes,” and confirmed the Bukele model when asked directly. On INPEC he was blunter: “INPEC is a cancer for Colombian justice and for Colombian society. It has to be taken out.” The number is not settled — El Tiempo’s summary of his 10 governing pillars put it at seven. A senior Salvadoran government official said Bukele’s administration is willing to advise Colombia on the build, in an interview with Semana reported by Chicanoticias. Medellín is not waiting: Gutiérrez has announced a high-security facility for more than 1,300 inmates, financed with public and private funds, guarded by its own dedicated force rather than INPEC officers, and expected to open in 2027, according to AFP reporting carried by France 24.

The baseline is genuinely bad. A Contraloría (Comptroller General) review running to 306 findings, reported by El Tiempo, puts overcrowding at 27.1 percent at the close of March 2026, against 19.9 percent in February 2022. Installed capacity rose by 378 beds in four years, from 80,647 to 81,025, while the inmate population grew by 6,246, from 96,703 to 102,949. El Tiempo puts the guard shortfall at up to 12,000, even as the custody corps itself grew from 12,715 to 14,142 officers. The economics are the harder problem. La Nación of Neiva estimates each facility at more than $1 trillion COP and three to four years to build, and cites the Universidad de los Andes security and drugs research center noting that five earlier national planning-council prison-infrastructure plans rarely executed more than 20 percent of their targets, while the combined budget of INPEC and the prison services agency USPEC went from $1.6 trillion COP to more than $4 trillion COP between 2015 and 2025 without improving recidivism.

Colombia does not bring a strong balance sheet to that negotiation. The Finance Ministry’s own investor relations office lists S&P Global Ratings at BB- in foreign currency with a stable outlook as of April 2026, Fitch Ratings at BB stable as of December 2025, and Moody’s Ratings at Baa3 stable as of June 2025 — two of the three agencies below investment grade, with Moody’s alone still holding the sovereign at its lowest investment-grade notch. The April cut was Colombia’s fourth on S&P’s scale since 2020, El Espectador reported, quoting José Ignacio López of the financial research institute ANIF that the country “keeps moving away from investment grade.” A government proposing a mega-prison program on that scale, a national urban security surge and the elimination of the wealth tax, from that starting point, will be judged on sequencing rather than on ambition.

Then the ground moved

At 7:34 a.m. on Monday, August 10, 2026, a magnitude 7.4 earthquake struck western Colombia, centered on San José del Palmar in Chocó, a community of 4,800 people about 400 kilometers west of Bogotá. Al Jazeera, reporting with AP and Reuters, sourced the epicenter to the United States Geological Survey and put the toll at 250 dead or more by August 11, with more than 2,700 people reported missing on citizen-run websites and about 1,600 buildings damaged or destroyed. Several upper floors of Cali’s Hospital Universitario del Valle collapsed, including pediatric wards, with roughly 600 patients treated in a street full of rubble; hospital director Irne Torres Castro described the scene to Caracol television. The same report cites the Servicio Geológico Colombiano (Colombian Geological Service) recording 21 aftershocks by late Monday, and quotes Camila Gómez, deputy director of programs for Colombia and Venezuela at the International Rescue Committee, calling it the largest earthquake Colombia has experienced in two decades.

Imágenes desgarradoras del terremoto en Pereira muestra como se les viene encima la casita a esta familia. Pensando más en lo material que en sus vidas, pero nadie sabe cuánto costó conseguirlo. #terremoto #temblor pic.twitter.com/i7gqeZmy5B

— Don Ramon (@RuedaJohnn37191) August 15, 2026

Per that same account, de la Espriella declared a national state of emergency, mobilized what he called “the entire military and police apparatus,” traveled to Quibdó and to Cali, and promised rental subsidies for people whose homes were damaged. Curfews went up in Cali, Armenia and Manizales; hospitals in five cities went to red alert; airports at Pereira, Manizales, Quibdó, Armenia, Cartago and Buenaventura suspended operations for structural inspection. “Chocó will never again be the land of the forgotten,” he said in Quibdó. MercoPress reported his appointment of geological engineer David Suárez Tamayo to head the Unidad Nacional para la Gestión del Riesgo de Desastres (National Disaster Risk Management Unit).

That Quibdó sentence is the decentralization argument, delivered under conditions nobody would have chosen. Counting the departments behind the cities named above — Chocó, Valle del Cauca, Risaralda, Quindío and Caldas — the quake hit the exact periphery the alternate-capital project is nominally about, and it hit the department where he had been sworn in three days earlier. It is also the first hard test of a government whose organizing promise is that the state can show up where it never has. On the early evidence, the machinery is being learned in real time. Colombia requested supplies but not foreign rescue personnel, despite offers from at least six countries, issuing a diplomatic note on August 11, 2026, that MercoPress noted does not formally amount to an international appeal. The same report has Bukele making Colombia’s position public before Bogotá did, and quotes international relations scholar Sandra Borda saying “the government is learning on the go how the mechanism works,” and that cities cannot channel aid directly. The posture shifted within days. By August 15, in the same El Tiempo report that carried his call with Trump, the Unidad Nacional para la Gestión del Riesgo de Desastres (National Disaster Risk Management Unit), or UNGRD, had begun formalizing requests for specialized teams from the United States, El Salvador, Ecuador and Israel, and de la Espriella had thanked Benjamin Netanyahu by telephone for the Israeli search-and-rescue crews.

🔴Se conocen impactantes imágenes del momento exacto en el que colapsó una edificación en la entrada del Centro del Comercio, en la ciudad de Pereira, durante el terremoto de 7,4 que se registró en Colombia el pasado 10 de agosto.

Las grabaciones muestran la caída de fragmentos… pic.twitter.com/oNZGvdbCJC

— EL TIEMPO (@ELTIEMPO) August 14, 2026

For the fiscal picture above, the quake is not a footnote. Reconstruction across those five departments now competes directly with prison concessions and an urban security surge for the same constrained peso. That belongs in any risk model built on the strength of the new security program.

Washington promises a billion dollars, and raises the tariff

The external position moved faster than anything domestic. On inauguration day, the US State Department released a statement titled “A New Era in US-Colombia Relations”, announcing that Washington, in coordination with Congress, intends to provide $1 billion USD as part of a security package supporting the new administration. El Tiempo noted the money is not approved: the statement says only that Washington will work with Congress to assemble it. The reversal it implies is still steep. US assistance to Colombia, which once ran at about $400 million USD a year, fell to roughly $187 million USD during the first year of Trump’s second term, according to a report to the US Congress cited by Infobae — a cut made in Washington, not in Bogotá, during a period of open dispute over drug policy. In 2025, the United States declined to certify Colombia’s counternarcotics performance for the first time since 1997, with a national-interest waiver that withheld the harshest consequences.

MercoPress reported that acting Attorney General Todd Blanche led the US delegation to the inauguration, with Office of National Drug Control Policy director Sara Carter and the vice president’s national security adviser, Cliff Sims; Donald Trump, JD Vance and Marco Rubio did not travel. The same State Department statement folded Colombia into Escudo de las Américas (Shield of the Americas), a regional security initiative backed by the Trump administration. De la Espriella had already placed its Colombian seat in Medellín, announcing on July 22, 2026, that the headquarters would go there “because this is where the head of the serpent of drug trafficking and organized crime is,” in remarks reported by Portafolio — a strategic choice, and also a second payment on the electoral debt described earlier.

Five days after the inauguration that relationship acquired a considerably harder edge. At an Escudo de las Américas meeting in Panama on August 12, 2026, US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said the new Colombian government had asked Washington to join its fight against narcoterrorism, “authorizing joint military operations to destroy the terrorists and the terror networks,” and named Colombia the 19th member of the Coalition Against the Cartels of the Americas. El Universal of Cartagena reported the announcement, and Vanguardia and El Tiempo both described what was authorized as joint military operations inside Colombia. That is a different proposition from an assistance package. Aid is a budget line Washington can adjust; foreign forces operating alongside Colombian ones inside Colombia is a sovereignty question, and it was settled in the first week of a presidency that commands no bloc in Congress. Whether that arrangement stays executive or ends up before the legislature is among the most consequential open questions he leaves himself.

The billion-dollar headline needs one piece of context that did not make the statement. CBS News reported that at the end of July 2026, roughly a week before the “new era” release, the United States raised its general tariff on Colombian imports from 10 percent to 12.5 percent, with exceptions including coffee and oil. After the earthquake, de la Espriella’s first substantive ask of Trump was to undo it. He told El Tiempo that the 10-minute call was “very friendly and cordial,” that he had asked Trump to consider a temporary suspension “to relieve our businesspeople, who are facing very difficult times because of the effects of the earthquake,” and that he had described the task ahead as rebuilding Colombia “in the middle of the economic situation — so difficult, so apocalyptic — that I inherited.” CBS News put the accompanying US assistance at $26.5 million USD, up from the $15.5 million USD announced on the day of the quake.

In his victory speech in Barranquilla, covered at the time by Finance Colombia, he framed the shift as Colombia returning to its place among the free nations, as a serious partner and a loyal ally rather than a dependent one. A relationship in which the ally sets your tariff rate and you ask for relief by telephone is a workable relationship. Whether it stays reciprocal, or curdles into dependency on whichever administration holds the White House, is a fair question over four years, and it is worth asking no matter who is in Washington.

Troublesome tendencies in Abelardo’s background

Between 2008 and 2019, de la Espriella filed 109 criminal complaints for defamation and slander against journalists, reporters and other citizens, according to Fiscalía figures provided to the Fundación para la Libertad de Prensa (Foundation for Press Freedom), or FLIP. Most were archived, withdrawn or went nowhere, which is precisely FLIP’s point about them: the organization argues that the effect of repeated recourse to lawsuits, injunctions, rectification demands and platform complaints is measured not in convictions but in legal costs, attrition and self-censorship.

Ahead of the runoff, FLIP and the International Federation for Human Rights issued a joint statement describing a pattern of attacks against the press, and FLIP’s own June 18, 2026, statement characterized it as “public disparagement, accusations of alleged political agendas, judicial harassment of journalists, baseless challenges to editorial independence, and actions aimed at undermining journalism on matters of public interest related to his candidacy.” The same LatAm Journalism Review summary records de la Espriella’s answer, that it is necessary to “set limits on journalists who believe they are untouchable.” He now says that with the machinery of the state behind him rather than a private lawyer’s caseload. Whether he has matured on this point, or simply acquired better tools, is one of the first real tests of the term.

In July 2026, he announced the closure of the Office of the High Commissioner for Peace along with the presidential offices for National Reconciliation and for Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law, folding their functions into the Interior, Foreign Affairs and Defense ministries on the argument that those competencies already sit there and the offices duplicate them. “The peace commissioner’s office is finished, because there will be no more false peace processes in my government,” he said, as El Tiempo reported. The Unit for Implementation of the Final Agreement goes with them, its responsibilities passing to a new National Security Commissioner — the postconflict brief absorbed into a security structure. Infobae put the scope at 229 positions cut from the Presidency as of August 7, 2026, for a projected annual saving of $10 billion COP. Winding down a negotiating strategy that failed on the numbers above is a defensible decision. El Tiempo’s reading of the rest is the part worth sitting with: the move dismantles the two offices that tracked state human rights policy and compliance with Colombia’s international commitments, and leaves those subjects with no unit reporting directly to the president.

The prison model carries the same risk in another form. The attraction of Bukele’s system, in de la Espriella’s own telling, is the collapse in gang violence that followed it. What it also produced is documented: Amnesty International found that four years into El Salvador’s state of emergency more than 90,000 people had been detained and at least 470 had died in state custody, in a report titled «Seguridad» sin derechos (“Security” Without Rights) built on six documentation visits between May 2022 and January 2025, 109 interviews and direct examination of more than 80 individual cases. The organization argues the pattern could amount to crimes against humanity. Whether Colombia’s version imports the first result without the second is unknown, because the program does not exist yet. It belongs near the top of the watch list for the coming year, and not only on financial grounds.

What to watch

In the Barranquilla victory speech quoted earlier, de la Espriella struck a different note than his record suggests: no victors and no vanquished, no retaliation, no persecution, rights respected even for those who did not vote for him. With a margin under 1 percentage point, a party four days old at inauguration and no bloc in Congress, that posture is arithmetic before it is generosity. It is also the only version of this presidency with a chance of surviving past a single term.

The collapse documented here fell hardest on low-income Colombians in the cities and the countryside — the people without private security, who cannot simply avoid a dangerous neighborhood. If the crackdown that began under the urban security decree goes after the armed structures themselves rather than the poorest people living next to them, the homicide and extortion trends can reverse. If it does not, the country trades one set of victims for another and buys a human rights problem on top of a security problem.

Five markers will tell the story faster than any speech. Whether quarterly extortion and homicide figures move, and in which municipalities. Whether financing for the prison program appears as an actual budget line rather than a concession announcement, now that reconstruction has a prior claim on it. Whether the Corte Suprema rules on Uribe, and what that does to what is left of Centro Democrático. Whether the alternate-capital amendment survives even the first of its eight debates. And whether any rating agency moves an outlook on the strength of the new fiscal posture, or against it on the cost of the quake.

The armed groups tested every recent transition in Colombia early, and there is no reason to expect this one to be different. The FARC dissident structures and the National Liberation Army, or ELN, will test the response, and the way this administration answers that first test — in Cauca, in Catatumbo, in the Bajo Cauca — will tell you more about the next four years than the first 100 days of decrees.

Not the next quarter. Not the next election cycle. Not the next sustainability report. The future.

The kind of future where a young woman escaping violence can access dignified work. Where communities in remote regions can shape their own development. Where social mobility is not an exception but a possibility. Where prosperity is shared, not concentrated.

“My greatest motivation to lead the work at One is to witness value-generating projects whose results are sustainable over time and drive new initiatives” – Monica Gil Ryan

Throughout my career, I have worked at the intersection of public policy, private sector leadership, and social transformation. Those experiences taught me that lasting change does not happen by accident. It requires intention, resources, patience, and above all, trust.

That conviction is what led us at One Inversión Social to rethink a fundamental question: how can capital become a force for transformation?

At One, we believe social investment is not charity. It is one of the most strategic investments a society can make. We connect philanthropists, families, companies, and foundations with initiatives capable of generating measurable, sustainable, and systemic impact. Our work is based on a simple premise: resources create greater value when they are deployed with rigor, purpose, and a long-term vision.

Yet despite growing conversations around ESG, sustainability, and corporate citizenship, many important questions remain unanswered.

Why do we continue to finance short-term solutions for long-term problems? Why do we expect communities facing generations of exclusion to demonstrate transformational outcomes in six or twelve months? Why do we still measure social progress primarily through outputs rather than through lasting changes in people’s lives? And perhaps most importantly: Why do we trust financial markets to think in decades but expect social transformation to happen overnight?

One of the most common mistakes in philanthropy is impatience. We want immediate indicators. We want certainty. We want guarantees. But social change does not operate according to quarterly reporting cycles.

The most meaningful transformations often begin with something difficult to quantify: trust. Trust between organizations and communities. Trust between funders and local leaders. Trust that allows experimentation, learning, adaptation, and growth.

My two experiences at Harvard Business School reinforced the importance of technical rigor, evidence-based decision-making, policy design, and measurement. These tools matter deeply. Data matters. Evaluation matters.

But the field taught me something equally important. No framework, however sophisticated, can replace listening.

The leaders who understand the challenges of a territory are often the people who live there every day. Community organizations, grassroots leaders, local entrepreneurs, and social innovators frequently possess knowledge that no external consultant can replicate.

The role of philanthropy is not to arrive with all the answers. Its role is to identify those already creating solutions, provide them with patient and flexible capital, and help them scale what is already working.

This is where the private sector has an extraordinary opportunity.

For decades, many companies approached social responsibility as an activity adjacent to business. A donation here. A project there. A photograph for the annual report. That model is no longer enough.

The companies shaping the future are integrating social impact into their core operations. They are strengthening local supply chains, diversifying procurement, investing in talent development, supporting entrepreneurship, and using their operational capabilities to address challenges within their ecosystems.

The question is no longer whether companies should contribute to social transformation. The question is how intentionally they are doing it.

Because every allocation of capital is ultimately a statement about the future we want to build. Every investment reflects a belief. Every philanthropic decision reveals a priority. Every partnership sends a signal about whose voices matter and whose solutions deserve support.

So I return to the question. Who is financing the future?

Governments cannot do it alone. Communities should not have to do it alone. And philanthropy, while powerful, will never be enough if it remains disconnected from the broader economic system.

The future will be financed by those willing to think beyond immediate returns. By leaders who understand that prosperity and social cohesion are inseparable. By companies that recognize impact as a strategic asset. By philanthropists who combine the discipline of analysis with the humility of listening.

Most importantly, it will be financed by those who understand that social transformation is not an expense. It is an investment.

The challenge before us is not whether resources exist. The challenge is whether we have the courage, the patience, and the vision to direct them where they matter most.

Because the future is already being financed. The real question is: are we investing in the right one?

If this conversation resonates with you, I’d love to continue it. Let’s rethink together how philanthropy, business, and long-term social investment can help finance the future we all want to build.

Follow the conversation:
LinkedIn: Mónica Gil Ryan (linkedin.com/in/monica-gil-coca-5bb08143)
Instagram: @monicagilryan

President-elect Abelardo de la Espriella has completed the formation of his Cabinet ahead of taking office on August 7, assembling an 18-member team that includes nine women and nine men in compliance with Colombia’s gender parity law. The appointments complete the lineup of officials who will lead the country’s executive branch during his first year in office.

The Cabinet’s composition offers the first clues about the profile the new administration may adopt, becoming the first Colombian government led by a politician identified with the far right.

Throughout the presidential campaign, De la Espriella portrayed himself as a political outsider, describing himself as one of “los nunca”, those who had never governed before, while referring to his rivals as “los de siempre,” a label for Colombia’s traditional political class.

One of the central questions is whether he will govern following the models of leaders he has cited as references, such as Argentina’s Javier Milei and El Salvador’s Nayib Bukele, or whether he will ultimately rely on the traditional right that has governed Colombia repeatedly within the constitutional framework and the country’s system of checks and balances.

That debate had already emerged during the campaign when he selected José Manuel Restrepo, an economist and former minister under President Iván Duque, as his running mate. Widely regarded as a technocrat, Restrepo’s nomination was interpreted as a signal of moderation to voters who questioned the presidential candidate’s limited political and government experience.

The final Cabinet combines ministers who served in previous administrations, representatives of traditional political dynasties, business leaders, figures aligned with the MAGA movement and President Donald Trump, representatives of evangelical churches and Christian communities, and several officials with no previous experience in the national government. It also includes a number of politicians who were outspoken opponents of the outgoing administration of Gustavo Petro.

Top row, from left: Elsa Noguera (Transport), Mauricio Gómez Amín (Commerce, Industry and Tourism) and Viviane Morales (Education). Bottom row, from left: Jaime Andrés Beltrán (Housing), Juliana Gutiérrez Zuluaga (Sports) and Iván Cancino (Justice and Law). Photos from the ministers’ social media accounts.

The most technocratic appointments

Among this group, one of the appointments that generated the greatest expectations was Ana María Vesga as health minister, one of the country’s most sensitive portfolios after years of debate over Colombia’s health care system.

A lawyer and representative of the business sector, Vesga previously served as executive president of ACEMI, the association representing Colombia’s leading EPS or health insurance providers. From that position, she became one of the country’s main voices on the health system crisis, its financing and proposals to strengthen it. Eliminating the EPS system was one of the main objectives of the unsuccessful health reforms promoted by the government of Gustavo Petro.

Another top priority for the incoming administration will be security, which De la Espriella says has deteriorated because of “the failure of Petro’s Total Peace policy.” He appointed retired Gen. Jorge Mora as defense minister. With more than 35 years of military service, academic credentials and technical expertise, Mora will lead the government’s strategy against illegal armed groups, which the president-elect has given an ultimatum to abandon criminal activity. Mora also unsuccessfully ran for public office with the endorsement of Centro Democrático, the right-wing party founded by former President Álvaro Uribe.

María Nohemí Arboleda, appointed minister of Mines and Energy, represents a profile that bridges technical expertise and politics. Since 2016 she has led XM, the company responsible for operating Colombia’s national electricity transmission grid, after spending much of her career at ISA, the state-controlled energy company based in Medellín. One of her main challenges will be the possible reactivation of hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, a method of oil and gas extraction criticized by the outgoing government for its environmental impact.

Representatives of traditional political dynasties

Among figures affiliated with Colombia’s traditional political parties and family political clans, those De la Espriella has referred to as “los de siempre”, Elsa Noguera stands out as the incoming transportation minister. She previously served as mayor of Barranquilla, governor of Atlántico and housing minister, while building much of her political career within Cambio Radical, the party linked to the Char political clan, one of the new president’s main political allies.

Rodrigo Lara Restrepo, the incoming interior minister, also fits that profile. He served two terms as a senator for Cambio Radical and has maintained close political ties with former Presidents Álvaro Uribe and Iván Duque, as well as former Vice President Germán Vargas Lleras, all leading figures of Colombia’s conservative right.

Indalecio Dangond, who will head the Ministry of Agriculture, advised the administrations of Ernesto Samper (Partido Liberal), Andrés Pastrana (Partido Conservador) and Álvaro Uribe (Centro Democrático), and also worked for Fedepalma, the palm oil producers’ federation that he will now oversee as minister.

Mauricio Gómez Amín, appointed minister of Commerce, Industry and Tourism, served two terms as senator, was a member of the House of Representatives and a city council member. He also managed De la Espriella’s presidential campaign and is considered a key political ally of the Char clan in Barranquilla.

Also in this group is three-term Centro Democrático Senator Paola Holguín, who will become culture minister. Although she sought her party’s presidential nomination, she distanced herself after Paloma Valencia was selected.

Holguín also maintains close political ties with Medellín Mayor Federico “Fico” Gutiérrez, whose sister, Juliana Gutiérrez, has been appointed sports minister. They are joined by Natalia López, the incoming labor minister, who unsuccessfully ran for the Senate under the Creemos movement led by Fico Gutiérrez.

Fabio Arjona, the incoming environment minister, served as deputy environment minister during the Ernesto Samper administration from 1997 to 1998. He later led Conservation International in Colombia for two decades.

Rounding out this group is Miguel Gómez, the incoming finance minister. He belongs to one of Colombia’s traditional Conservative families: he is the nephew of slain Conservative leader Álvaro Gómez Hurtado, grandson of former President Laureano Gómez and brother of current Senator Enrique Gómez.

President-elect Abelardo de la Espriella poses with his Cabinet during a leadership retreat ahead of his inauguration. Photo published on X by the incoming administration.

Those who had never held government office

Five Cabinet members most clearly embody De la Espriella’s campaign concept of “los nunca”: Jorge Mora (Defense), criminal lawyer Iván Cancino (Justice and Law), audiovisual expert Alexandra Falla (Information and Communications Technologies), Omar Bula (Foreign Affairs) and Claudia Benavides (Science, Technology and Innovation).

Omar Bula’s appointment has attracted particular attention. Although De la Espriella has pledged to strengthen relations with the United States, the incoming foreign minister’s most significant international experience came between 1989 and 2012 through several missions with the United Nations World Food Program. At the same time, in recent years he has become a strong critic of the UN, describing it as a “left-wing directory” with an “anti-Western globalist agenda.” On social media he has also defended positions associated with the MAGA movement and argued that climate change is a false “woke idea.”

Claudia Benavides, meanwhile, was selected through a digital “talent hunt” platform created by De la Espriella to receive applications from citizens interested in joining the government. According to the president-elect, she was chosen from more than 300,000 applicants and had no previous relationship with him.

Signals to religious sectors

The presence of leaders linked to religious and Christian groups is another defining feature of the Cabinet.

The most prominent figure is former Senator and former Attorney General Viviane Morales. Although she built much of her political career within Partido Liberal, she has embraced conservative positions on same-sex marriage, adoption by same-sex couples, euthanasia and abortion. She also led a referendum initiative seeking to prohibit adoption by same-sex couples, although it was rejected by the House of Representatives.

Her appointment as education minister has raised concerns among academic and liberal sectors, particularly after stating that schools should “remove Marx and bring God back into the classroom.” Morales is also the wife of Carlos Alonso Lucío, a former M-19 guerrilla member who helped shape the ideology behind the Salvación Nacional movement and De la Espriella’s government.

Also, in this category is Jaime Andrés Beltrán, the incoming housing minister. The removed former mayor of Bucaramanga, Christian pastor and outspoken admirer of Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele reflects the growing political influence of Christian movements within the governing coalition.

Between change and continuity

The Cabinet’s composition partially contrasts with one of De la Espriella’s central campaign messages: governing with “los nunca,” referring to people who, as he repeatedly said, had “never lived off the state’s payroll” and had never belonged to Colombia’s traditional political class.

Beyond the individual appointments, the Cabinet provides the first concrete indication of the governing model De la Espriella intends to pursue over the next four years.

The combination of figures drawn from the traditional political establishment, technocrats, private-sector representatives, leaders close to Christian movements and several officials with no previous government experience suggests a strategy focused more on governability and institutional stability than on political disruption.

That balance will be tested from the beginning of the administration in a highly fragmented Congress where no political force holds a majority, forcing the new president to negotiate each of his major reforms while confronting challenges including security, economic recovery, health care reform and strengthening relations with the United States.

Historically, not only in Colombia but around the world, incoming presidents and prime ministers typically achieve only a fraction of what is promised during their campaigns. Even if 30% of commitments are delivered, Abelardo could still disappoint some of his supporters, particularly those in Medellín who became deeply disaffected with Gustavo Petro’s administration. Ultimately, only time will tell. Much has been promised, but the pudding still has to be proven.

One major challenge will be the currency, which has moved to levels not seen in many years. The peso reached COP 3,100 against the dollar on Friday, and while many had feared a move toward COP 3,000, the surprise decision by Banco de la República to leave interest rates unchanged at 12%, despite rising inflation, quickly reversed that trajectory. COP 3,200 appears possible as the week begins.

These are extremely challenging levels for exporters and, in turn, for Abelardo, who has promised a golden age for overseas sales. Key sectors such as coffee and flowers have already publicly expressed concerns about declining competitiveness. Even if the new administration succeeds in creating a new oil boom, revenues generated at current peso levels will be significantly lower than anticipated.

The past four years have been dominated by discussions around debt and deficits, which economists understand are the cumulative result of decisions made by previous governments. These pressures are unlikely to ease if the peso remains at current levels.

Consumer confidence from Fedesarrollo remains solid. Retail sales are supporting imports of durable goods, particularly vehicles and electronics, adding more than $1 billion USD to the monthly deficit.

Other sectors likely to feel pressure include tourism and real estate, both of which have experienced significant growth in recent years. Colombia has become an increasingly fashionable destination, and many visitors have later returned to invest in houses and apartments. Today, however, those investments have slowed, while visitors are finding hotels, restaurants and excursions considerably more expensive than they were two years ago.

The reasons behind the peso’s current level are many, but a key factor has been investment flows into Colombia’s attractive local TES bond market through carry trade strategies. That said, profit-taking could soon emerge, particularly if investors begin positioning for a stronger dollar.

Let’s see how “The Tiger” addresses the challenge.

My regards,

Roops

Colombian President-elect Abelardo de la Espriella (above right)ordered the suspension of transition meetings with the outgoing administration after President Gustavo Petro (above left) publicly challenged the legitimacy of his election victory in the June 21 runoff.

The decision does not cancel the formal transfer-of-power process, which is governed by Law 951 of 2005 establishing the general rules for the handover and receipt of public affairs and state assets. However, it does suspend the in-person and virtual technical meetings between the outgoing administration and the incoming government.

In a post on X, De la Espriella said he had instructed Vice President-elect José Manuel Restrepo to “immediately suspend the transition process” with the outgoing administration, which he described as “a corrupt government that is reaching the end of its term.”

“I could not allow the transition process to continue with a government that does not recognize the victory of this political project,” De la Espriella said when announcing the decision.

The move came after Petro wrote on X that “the president of Colombia does not recognize the legitimacy of the incoming government” and that “Abelardo did not win the election.” Petro also added that, in his interpretation and according to the will of the Colombian people, “the president is the philosopher Iván Cepeda,” comments that angered the incoming administration.

Does the transition remain a legal obligation?

Although the meetings between the two teams have been suspended, the formal transfer of information remains mandatory.

It is important to understand that Colombian law does not establish the procedures or methodology governing presidential transition meetings themselves. Consequently, in-person meetings such as those organized by De la Espriella and Petro are neither mandatory nor regulated by law. Rather, they are a political tradition developed over time to facilitate the exchange of information between outgoing and incoming administrations.

As a result, it is necessary to distinguish between the meetings and the transition process itself. The transfer of power is not a courtesy between governments or a discretionary political decision; it is regulated by law.

Law 951 of 2005 requires “outgoing public officials to deliver organized information regarding the matters, resources, programs and responsibilities under their authority to ensure transparency, administrative continuity and public accountability.”

The law requires the outgoing administration “to deliver reports, supporting documents and official records within 15 days after leaving office”. Incoming officials then have up to one month to submit observations, request clarifications or seek additional information.

The law requires the outgoing administration “to deliver reports, supporting documents and official records within 15 days after leaving office”. Incoming officials then have up to one month to submit observations, request clarifications or seek additional information.

This means that suspending the meetings does not eliminate the legal obligation to transfer information or prevent oversight institutions from reviewing potential failures to comply.

What is lost by suspending the meetings?

Although transition meetings are not expressly required by law, they serve an important practical purpose.

For the outgoing administration, they provide an opportunity to explain the status of public policies, advocate for the continuation of ongoing programs and document strategic decisions. For the incoming government, they facilitate the identification of administrative challenges, fiscal risks, contractual obligations and sector-specific priorities before taking office.

Without those direct exchanges, the incoming administration will rely primarily on written reports, official documents and alternative mechanisms for gathering information.

“Using the alternative means we have to gather that information, once we take office, we will have clarity regarding the figures we receive,” De la Espriella said.

Former High Commissioner for Peace Miguel Ceballos told Caracol Radio that “public officials leaving office are legally required to account for their administration and that incoming officials may record any concerns or objections in writing so they can later be reviewed by oversight authorities.”

No penalty for canceling meetings, but there are penalties for failing to transfer information

Colombian law does not establish a specific sanction for temporarily or permanently suspending transition meetings.

However, outgoing officials remain legally obligated to provide complete, accurate and timely information. If an agency or public official omits information, submits incomplete records or fails to fulfill reporting obligations, they could face disciplinary, fiscal or even criminal investigations, depending on the seriousness of the conduct.

Law 1952 of 2019, Colombia’s General Disciplinary Code, establishes that failing to properly hand over a public office constitutes a disciplinary offense. In such cases, the Office of the Inspector General may initiate disciplinary proceedings against the officials responsible.

Presidential inauguration will not be affected

Suspending the transition meetings does not prevent the president-elect from taking office or alter the constitutional timetable for the transfer of power.

Under Colombia’s Constitution, the incoming president must assume office on the scheduled date. From that moment, the new president will have full authority to appoint Cabinet members, issue instructions to state institutions and exercise the powers of the presidency.

The transition process therefore facilitates the administrative transfer of government but is not a legal prerequisite for the constitutional transfer of power.

De la Espriella is scheduled to be inaugurated on August 7, 2026. Petro himself confirmed that he will transfer power that day as required by law.

“The transition is before the people. It is a public handover by the government whose term ends at midnight on Aug. 6 because that was the mandate of the people, and I obey the people,” Petro said in a public statement.

Colombia’s energy security is eroding faster than most investors realize. According to the Informe de Recursos y Reservas (Resources and Reserves Report, IRR) 2025, published June 23, 2026 by the Agencia Nacional de Hidrocarburos (National Hydrocarbons Agency, ANH), the country’s proven natural gas reserves — technically designated Category 1P — have fallen to 1,717 billion cubic feet (Bcf), known in Colombia as Giga pies cúbicos (billion cubic feet, Gpc). That figure represents a 54% collapse from the 3,782 Bcf held at the end of 2018. It is not a cyclical dip. It is a structural deterioration that is accelerating, driven in significant part by a government that has made halting hydrocarbon development an explicit policy objective.

For investors and analysts tracking Colombia’s fiscal position, industrial competitiveness, and household energy costs, the IRR 2025 is a report that demands careful reading. What it shows is a country consuming its own energy inheritance — and doing so at a pace it is no longer replenishing.

Seven Years of Losses

In 2018, Colombia held 3,782 Bcf of proven natural gas reserves. By the end of 2025, that figure had been cut nearly in half, to 1,717 Bcf. The 2025 result alone represents a drop of 347 Bcf compared to the 2,064 Bcf recorded at end-2024 — a single-year decline of 16.8%. Against the ten-year average of 3,259 Bcf, the current level is 47.3% lower.

What is striking about the annual trajectory is that the steepest declines have occurred since August 7, 2022 — the date President Gustavo Petro took office. Between 2018 and 2022, reserves moved within a range of 2,817 Bcf to 3,782 Bcf, fluctuating as production and new additions roughly balanced. Beginning in 2022, the trend turned sharply and consistently downward: 2,817 Bcf at end-2022, 2,373 Bcf at end-2023, 2,064 Bcf at end-2024, and 1,717 Bcf today. That is a loss of 1,100 Bcf in just three years.

The reserves-to-production (R/P) ratio — the industry’s standard measure of how many years of supply remain at current extraction rates — stood at 5.9 years as of December 31, 2025. Context: in 2007, when Colombia’s gas reserves reached their historical peak, the R/P ratio was 14.1 years. The current figure is 8.2 years below that peak, and 2.2 years below the ten-year average of 8.2 years. Put simply, at today’s production rate, Colombia would exhaust its proven gas reserves in under six years.

Graphic 1: Colombia proven natural gas reserves (1P, Bcf) 2018–2025.

The Reserve Replacement Crisis

Reserves decline when production exceeds new additions. In 2025, Colombia’s total annual gas reserve additions reached negative 58 Bcf — meaning the country certified less gas than it extracted from the ground. This compares to positive additions of 42 Bcf in 2024, and a ten-year historical average of 146 Bcf per year in new additions. The 2025 figure is the worst annual result in the dataset.

The ANH’s reserve balance formula is straightforward: ending reserves equal starting reserves, minus production, plus total annual additions. With additions at -58 Bcf and production at 290 Bcf, the combined drain on reserves was 348 Bcf in a single year. The reserve replacement rate — which expresses additions as a percentage of production — stood at negative 20%, 32 percentage points worse than the replacement rate recorded in 2024.

“In 2024, Colombia lost its self-sufficiency and became dependent on foreign liquefied natural gas (LNG).” — El Colombiano, June 2026

A reserve replacement rate of negative 20% means that for every 100 cubic feet of gas Colombia produced in 2025, it certified negative 20 cubic feet of new supply. The industry considers a rate below 100% a warning sign. Colombia is now operating at negative territory.

The ANH identifies “technical revisions” — downward reinterpretations of existing field data — as the primary driver of the negative additions figure. Specifically, a downward revision of 125 Bcf from technical reassessments erased 60 Bcf in new discoveries and 5 Bcf in enhanced recovery additions, producing the net negative result. The revision reflects how mature Colombia’s major gas-producing fields have become. Over the last four years, the ANH notes, negative technical revisions have become a consistent pattern, “evidencing the high degree of maturity of the most representative gas fields in Colombia.”

The counterweight — new exploration discoveries — contributed 60 Bcf in 2025, a 62% increase over 2024 and the report’s most encouraging data point. In October 2024, Colombia announced its biggest gas discovery in four decades — a genuinely important find, though its contribution to 2025 additions illustrates that even large individual discoveries cannot compensate for the suppression of systematic exploration activity. It underscores that the remaining path to reserve growth runs through exploration, precisely the activity the Petro government has chosen to suppress.

Graphic 2: Annual gas reserve additions vs. production 2018–2025.

Production in Structural Decline

Gas production in 2025 came in at 290 Bcf — 61 Bcf less than the 351 Bcf commercialized in 2024, a reduction of 17.4%. Against the ten-year average of 385 Bcf per year, 2025 production was 95 Bcf below the historical norm.

The decline is not a one-year event. It is a trend line, and independent analysts say it will steepen. According to Luis David Pachón, energy and gas analyst and consultant quoted by El Colombiano in June 2026, Colombia’s average gas production potential in May 2026 was 789 Giga BTU por día (billion BTU per day, GBTUD). That represents a 7% drop from 848 GBTUD the previous year. Pachón’s estimates project a continued descent: 759 GBTUD in 2027, 706 GBTUD in 2028, 612 GBTUD in 2029, and just 542 GBTUD by 2030. That is a 31% decline from today’s already-reduced production level over five years.

These are not projections built on pessimistic assumptions. They are field-level extrapolations of what happens when existing reservoirs mature and no new supply is added. Without new exploration and development, this trajectory is, according to Pachón’s analysis, essentially locked in.

Graphic 3: Colombia gas production forecast 2026–2030 in GBTUD with SPEC import capacity reference line.

Geographic Concentration: A Portfolio with No Diversification

Colombia’s gas reserves are not only shrinking — they are dangerously concentrated. More than 95% of the country’s proven 1P gas reserves are held in just five sedimentary basins. The Cordillera Oriental leads with 714 Bcf, or 41.6% of the national total. The Valle Inferior del Magdalena holds 337 Bcf (19.6%), offshore Guajira contributes 292 Bcf (17%), the Llanos Orientales account for 157 Bcf (9.1%), and the Valle Medio del Magdalena adds 134 Bcf (7.8%). Together, these five basins hold 95.1% of Colombia’s proven gas reserves.

This concentration creates compounding risk. As the ANH’s own technical revisions confirm, the most mature fields driving those downward adjustments are concentrated in precisely these basins. A major operational disruption, regulatory interference, or accelerated depletion in any one of them would hit the national supply balance hard. Offshore Guajira’s 17% share is particularly relevant to watch, as it represents the primary frontier for future offshore development — development that the government’s moratorium on new contracts has deferred indefinitely.

Graphic 4: Colombia gas reserves 1P by sedimentary basin.

Oil Reserves: Stable on the Surface, Hollowed Out Below

Colombia’s proven oil reserves present a more stable picture at first glance. The country held 2,020 million barrels (Mbl) of 1P oil reserves at December 31, 2025, essentially unchanged from the 2,035 Mbl recorded in 2024 — a variation of -0.7%. The oil R/P ratio actually improved slightly, from 7.2 years in 2024 to 7.4 years in 2025, reflecting both effective field management through planes de producción incrementales (incremental production plans, PPI) and enhanced oil recovery (EOR) programs.

The ANH notes that between 2024 and 2025, PPI-EOR programs incorporated 58 Mbl into 1P reserves — 97% of the volume achieved the prior year, demonstrating that intensive management of existing fields is compensating, for now, for the near-complete absence of new exploration success.

But the stability in headline reserves conceals a critical vulnerability: the exploration pipeline is effectively empty. New oil reserve additions associated with discoveries — new wells finding new oil — reached only 4 million barrels in 2025. Between 2012 and 2018, the average was 85 million barrels per year in discovery-driven additions. That is a 95.3% collapse in exploratory success. When PPI-EOR programs exhaust their incremental potential in the medium term, there will be nothing in the exploration queue to replace them.

Colombia has 2,404 Mbl of contingent petroleum resources at the 3C level — discovered but not yet commercially viable — with 56% (1,358 Mbl) held back by environmental and social contingencies, and 20% (475 Mbl) blocked by unfavorable economics at current prices. The contingent resource base is real, but converting it to production requires investment, permitting, and a government that is not actively discouraging the industry. As Finance Colombia has reported, the Petro administration’s relationship with the hydrocarbon sector has been defined by hostility rather than partnership — a dynamic visible in Shell’s April 2025 exit from Colombian offshore gas projects, joining a parade of majors that have reduced or eliminated their Colombian footprint.

Graphic 5: New oil reserve additions from discoveries (Mbl) 2012–2025.

The Petro Factor: Policy as Accelerant

President Gustavo Petro has made the energy transition a defining banner of his administration. Within that framework, he has chosen not to sign new hydrocarbon exploration contracts — a policy decision with consequences that are now quantifiable in the IRR 2025 data.

The causal logic is not complicated: exploration today yields reserves in five to fifteen years. When exploration stops, the reserve pipeline runs dry on a predictable schedule. Colombia’s gas fields are mature. The industry has known for years that sustaining supply required either deepening work in existing concessions or opening new ones. Petro’s government has constrained both paths — by refusing new contracts and by creating a regulatory and political environment that has chilled investment in existing operations.

The ANH’s own report acknowledges the dynamic indirectly. It highlights that EOR project filings increased 82% comparing the 2020–2022 period to 2023–2025, which it presents as evidence of productive government measures. But this increase reflects the industry pushing harder on existing fields precisely because new exploration is not an available avenue — a compensatory reaction to policy constraint, not evidence that the policy is working. Even Ecopetrol (BVC: ECOPETROL, NYSE: EC), the state-controlled oil company whose board the Petro administration increasingly controls, has had to navigate the tension between engineering reality and the government’s anti-hydrocarbon posture; as far back as 2023, Ecopetrol’s then-new president was publicly advocating for more exploration in direct opposition to Petro’s stated goals.

The Asociación Colombiana del Petróleo y Gas (ACP) has consistently warned that without new exploration contracts, Colombia’s hydrocarbon production would follow a predictable decline curve. The IRR 2025 confirms those warnings with data. The reserves trajectory under Petro — from 2,817 Bcf at end-2022 to 1,717 Bcf today — is the most direct measure available of what a no-new-contracts policy costs in energy security terms.

Import Dependency: An Avoidable Humiliation

The practical consequence of reserve depletion is playing out in real time at Colombia’s gas import terminals — and in consumers’ utility bills. Finance Colombia reported in March 2025 that Bogotá’s Vanti had already raised gas rates 36% and Medellín’s EPM by 21%, with the deficit cited as the direct cause. In 2024, Colombia lost its natural gas self-sufficiency for the first time and began depending on imported liquefied natural gas (LNG) to meet domestic demand — a fact reported by El Colombiano in June 2026. The situation deteriorated further: in the first week of June 2026, 32% of all gas consumed in Colombia came from imports through the regasification plant in Cartagena, operated by Sociedad Portuaria el Cayao (SPEC). That is the highest import share in the country’s history, according to data from the Sistema Electrónico de Gas (Electronic Gas System).

SPEC’s Cartagena facility has an import capacity of 465 GBTUD. Approximately two-thirds of that capacity is already being utilized to serve national demand, leaving a shrinking fraction available to absorb any additional supply shortfall. Given the production decline trajectory outlined by Pachón — down to 542 GBTUD by 2030 — Colombia will require significantly more import capacity than it currently has, or it will face supply rationing.

Additional regasification projects are under development — in Buenaventura, Coveñas (Sucre), and Ballena (La Guajira), in addition to the operating Cartagena facility. These are necessary investments. But they are investments in the infrastructure of dependency: Colombia building the capacity to pay other countries for gas it has in its own subsoil but has chosen not to extract.

The distributional consequence deserves to be stated directly. Over the past two decades, access to natural gas transformed household energy use for millions of lower-income Colombians, displacing wood combustion in cooking and heating. Wood burning accelerates deforestation, degrades air quality, and imposes a disproportionate burden on households that cannot afford cleaner alternatives. A policy that drives Colombia back toward LNG import dependency — at premium prices — is a policy that will price gas out of reach for those same households, potentially reversing one of the country’s most concrete environmental gains. Cheaper domestic gas served the poor. Expensive imported LNG will not.

Graphic 6: Gas production decline vs. growing import share / SPEC capacity.

Contingent Resources: The Potential That Policy Cannot Unlock

There is one genuinely encouraging number in the IRR 2025: Colombia holds 10,540 Bcf of contingent gas resources at the 3C level — discovered, potentially recoverable volumes that are not yet classified as commercial reserves. Of that total, 7,855 Bcf (74.5%) sits offshore, with the remaining 2,685 Bcf onshore. Offshore resources are more than twice the onshore total, consolidating the offshore Caribbean as Colombia’s primary future supply option.

The obstacle is not geology. Of the 10,540 Bcf in contingent gas resources, 55% (5,818 Bcf) is held back by environmental and social contingencies — primarily offshore licensing processes, consulta previa (prior consultation), and community negotiations. Another 29% (3,037 Bcf) is blocked by legal and contractual contingencies, including the unresolved regulatory framework governing connections to the national transport system for offshore production. Only 9% is technically constrained.

The ANH has identified acceleration of environmental licensing for the offshore Sirius project as a priority measure for 2026. That is a constructive step. But accelerating the licensing of a single project does not substitute for the policy framework that would enable the industry to develop this contingent resource base systematically. The government’s refusal to sign new exploration contracts means the 10,540 Bcf of contingent offshore gas will remain contingent for the foreseeable future — a frustration the industry has tracked for years, as Finance Colombia documented as early as 2023 when a second consecutive failed tender for Pacific region gas infrastructure signaled the depth of the supply challenge.

Fiscal Implications for Investors

The royalty trajectory is one of the clearest financial signals in the IRR 2025. Since August 7, 2022, through December 31, 2025 — a 40-month window spanning the Petro administration — cumulative hydrocarbon royalties reached COP 29.6 trillion, averaging COP 0.74 trillion per month. The ANH projects that the existing 1P proven reserves, valued at current prices, will generate an additional COP 36 trillion in royalties over their remaining life.

That COP 36 trillion projection is not a guarantee. It assumes production continues at roughly current rates, that prices hold, and that the reserves are fully extracted. Given the R/P ratio of 5.9 years for gas and 7.4 years for oil, and given the absence of new exploration, the royalty stream is finite in a way it was not five years ago. Colombia’s fiscal planners and subnational governments that depend on hydrocarbon royalty transfers should be building their budgets around a declining baseline, not a stable or growing one.

For international energy investors, the picture is one of attractive geological potential — 10,540 Bcf of contingent gas resources, 2,404 Mbl of contingent oil — combined with a policy and regulatory environment that has made converting that potential into production exceptionally difficult. As the ANH has noted, the EOR and PPI programs within existing contracts are producing results. But those programs work within existing concessions. Without new exploration acreage, they are rearranging deck chairs on a ship whose fuel is running out.

The Petro administration ends in August 2026. What the next government inherits is not a blank slate: it inherits a reserve base that will take a decade of sustained investment to rebuild, import infrastructure sized to a new dependency it did not choose, and a domestic industry that has spent four years under sustained policy pressure. The IRR 2025 is the most comprehensive accounting yet of what that pressure has cost.

Finance Colombia has covered the evolution of Colombia’s hydrocarbon sector, gas supply outlook, and energy transition policy in depth. For related coverage see: Shell Exits Colombian Offshore Gas Projects (April 2025); Colombia Braces for Surging Energy Costs as Natural Gas Deficit Expands (March 2025); and Petro Administration Announces Natural Gas Rationing Despite Abundant Hydrocarbon Resources (October 2024). Additional technical data is available directly from the ANH at anh.gov.co.

The overall poll was much closer than most expected, 49.7%–48.7%, a difference of just 250,000 votes out of a total of 26 million — almost 25% higher turnout than in 2022, which is great news for democracy. However, Antioquia, where Medellín lies, delivered the victory as he won the province by 1 million votes. Just as importantly, he lost in nearly every other major city in Colombia — including his hometown of Barranquilla.

Combining the slim margin of victory with his struggles in many parts of Colombia raises questions about what he can achieve over the next four years.

As I watched the feral campaign in Medellín while reading Abelardo’s ambitious election manifesto, one question has nagged away:

“Who will end up most disappointed — the supporters of Petro in 2022, or those of Aberlardo in 2026?”

Before Petro came Iván Duque, where there were few expectations and he lived down to them spectacularly. Petro himself benefited from those lost years, getting elected on the promise of changing the lives of the masses forever. Although he achieved several things toward that end, his supporters were largely disappointed, primarily due to his inability to administer.

Will Abelardo suffer the same fate? It could well happen.

He has no political party, will need to horse trade in Congress, and, more concerningly, many parts of Colombia do not want him. Even the huge vote in Antioquia was arguably not for him but for local boy, Vice President José Manuel Restrepo – and for arguably the first time we have a vice president who has genuine power and can provide checks and balances to any radical behaviour.

I have mentioned before the chaos of Duque’s last 12 months in office and the street protests that dogged his reform process. Given his lack of geographical reach, Abelardo would be well advised to tread carefully when trying to roll back reforms. Petro/Cepeda have lost the presidential battle, but 12.7 million votes suggest they are more than prepared for a war if the Tiger pushes too hard on his reform agenda.

The first skirmish of that war could occur if Abelardo follows through with his threat to declare 70 Trump-style decrees on day one in August.

Setting all that aside, Colombia has reconfirmed its status as South America’s preeminent democracy with a record turnout, minimal reports of fraud, even fewer incidents of violence, and paper results delivered in less than 120 minutes.

It only remains to buy the popcorn, sit back, and watch the fun starting in August.

My regards,
Roops

Barring any post-election drama, President-elect de la Espriella will take over a very divided country, and if he is smart, he will understand that he was the first choice of only a minority of the electorate. He will have a choice. He can govern for the small hard core, or he can be a conciliator.

Colombia has a nasty history of political violence, going back to the country’s founding. The person most Colombians see as the founder of the nation, Colombia’s George Washington figure, Simón Bolívar, barely escaped with his life during what was known as the Septembrine Conspiracy, which was born out of a conflict in visions for the new country. For most of the country’s history, the hostility between the Conservatives and the Liberals, the two primary political parties for most of Colombia’s history, manifested itself with bullets every bit as much as with ballots. Even though Colombia has, for almost all of its history, been a real democracy; the country has had only one military strongman dictator, and even he tried to be something of a reformer; violence has always had a hand in politics.

“With less than half the vote, the only mandate he holds is for an inclusive, conciliatory approach.” — Loren Moss, Finance Colombia

I once was at a talk in Medellín, years ago, where the businessman Chris Daes was asked, “When will Colombia advance?” “When we learn to stop hating each other,” he said.

Last night, after the election results were announced, police stations in Kennedy and Bosa, low-income neighborhoods in the southwest of Bogotá, were attacked. Why? The police hadn’t done anything. Riot police were called out to Puerto Rellena in Cali after roads were blocked by Cepeda supporters. In Medellín, some supporters of the president-elect turned up with bats and clubs outside Plaza Mayor, one of the city’s main public squares, probably supporters of de la Espriella, and let me emphasize that this is my guess, but no violence was reported.

Outgoing President Gustavo Petro called for calm, but also complained about US President Donald Trump’s open support of de la Espriella, forgetting that just months ago he was in the US and called for the US military to turn against its own government. Petro and the losing candidate, Senator Iván Cepeda, have said that while they acknowledge the preliminary vote count, they will not concede until an official final count, and they are calling for a scrutiny of the ballots.

So what happened here?

Three weeks ago, Colombia held the first round of presidential voting. The early favorite, Paloma Valencia of the right-wing establishment Centro Democrático party, backed by former president Álvaro Uribe, came in third, behind the right-wing outsider Abelardo de la Espriella and the ally of outgoing president Gustavo Petro, Senator Iván Cepeda of the leftist Pacto Histórico (Historic Pact). In Colombia there is an open first round, which can field many candidates, but the top two vote-getters advance to a final round unless one candidate clears 50% plus one.

Most people thought Cepeda would come in first with a unified left, but de la Espriella came in first, Cepeda second, and Valencia third. My take on this is very clear: Colombians were saying that they reject Gustavo Petro’s collectivist socialist experiment, but that they also reject Álvaro Uribe as the flag-bearer for the right. A sort of “we don’t like them, but we don’t like you either.”

So what happened in the past three weeks? Exactly what I expected. The outgoing president’s political machine moved to mass mobilization: get the buses out, get the affinity groups, such as indigenous leaders and unions, to mobilize. Something interesting happened: a government worker I know in immigration was told, and convinced, that she would lose her job if de la Espriella won. Her union told her this, of course. Cepeda and Petro’s movement has counted on its ability to mobilize people through group affiliation, working through organized structures to get out the vote. It was very effective, but not quite enough.

On the other hand, the split vote between Paloma Valencia and Abelardo de la Espriella came together, sort of, but not in a coordinated fashion. There was no real way to mobilize lukewarm people who were not already behind one of those two candidates. The business community had largely already opposed the Petro-Cepeda project, but it does not have the same mobilization machinery in place.

There will be time for a lot more journalism on this, but I want to get this initial reporting out quickly. Beyond that dynamic, what other factors came into play? Several:

• The outgoing president ran his administration like a game of thrones, or some kind of reality show. On average, he was bringing in a new cabinet minister every three weeks. It was nonstop drama and intrigue, and Cepeda’s message of “stay the course” ran up against that.
• Then there was the treatment of Vice President Francia Márquez. Petro used her to try to win the Afro-Colombian vote, but once they were elected, they tried to sideline her and treat her as a token. She rebelled against that and has called out her own administration for its corruption and racism. Over the past four years, Márquez has actually seemed more serious than Petro, who has a habit of crazy talk. By picking Aída Quilcué, Cepeda made it look like more of the same, and, fair or not, it made Quilcué look like a token candidate. Maybe it isn’t fair, but you can blame the Petro administration for creating that environment.
• Uribe’s first candidate choice, Senator Miguel Uribe Turbay (no relation), was assassinated on the orders of, according to Gustavo Petro’s own attorney general, the Segunda Marquetalia, a FARC dissident structure co-founded by Jesús Santrich, who was on his way to being extradited to the United States until that was allegedly blocked by Iván Cepeda’s efforts. Whether or not it is fair, for a lot of people in Colombia this is emblematic of Cepeda’s nurturing approach to the guerrilla groups, which have been growing stronger under the Pacto Histórico’s dialogue-first approach.
• The current administration is stained with several corruption scandals: the UNGRD scandal, in which money meant to bring water to poor, isolated families in the deserts of La Guajira was robbed for a political bribery fund; the ongoing scandals around Ricardo Roa and state petroleum company Ecopetrol (NYSE: EC), where Roa has been charged over alleged campaign-spending violations; the fiasco over the printing of Colombian passports; and a move that really angered the paisas (people of Antioquia and Medellín), the appointment of indicted former mayor Daniel Quintero to a government position supervising the finances of the country’s health system. Here you have a man with something like 40 counts of indictment for corruption, though let me be clear, he has not been convicted yet, and you appoint him to supervise the finances of the country’s primary health system? Usually when people are facing charges, they say something like “I am innocent, but I will resign to focus on clearing my name.” This one went full steam ahead. That undoubtedly cost votes among those who prioritize clean government.
• Cepeda’s running mate, Aída Quilcué, who never went to college, accused graduates of Colombia’s best universities of having “only learned to steal the people’s money.” She tried to walk that back after her statement blew up, but the damage was done. She was clearly attacking people who attended private universities in Colombia, many of which have no elite pretensions and specialize in educating low-income students.

What do I think will happen?

Assuming the vote count is not overturned, de la Espriella will take over the executive branch with no political machinery in Congress, so he will have to negotiate to get anything done. This is not a situation like El Salvador or Venezuela, where you come in and take over the whole government. To its credit, Colombia has strong institutions. Had Cepeda won, he would have come in with the largest bloc of legislators in Congress and might have found it relatively easy to push through his agenda. With de la Espriella, not so much, and I think this is a good thing. Personally, I like divided government as a concept, because it encourages moderation, consensus, and negotiation.

I expect the guerrilla groups to try to seize the initiative, and I expect their violence to increase in the short term as they try to assert their authority. Longer term, I think they are worse off, and they know the military will be after them soon, so they will make what hay they can while the sun shines. Expect them to try to “punish” the country for electing the candidate most hostile to them, a pattern that has already mocked the outgoing government’s “Total Peace” strategy.

Outgoing President Gustavo Petro will not shut up once out of office. He will become a full-time presence on social media and make as much noise as possible in opposition to the incoming administration. Unlike former President Juan Manuel Santos, Petro will be more like Álvaro Uribe, who has remained addicted to the spotlight, to influence, and to the thrill of power. In places where there is a tradition of former presidents ceding the spotlight, he won’t follow it. Petro will take every opportunity to travel around the world and throughout Colombia to speak, as he is entitled to, and to fashion for himself the role of dear father of the oppressed.

Petro and Cepeda and their movement will, if not explicitly then tacitly, reactivate the primera línea (front line), the aggressive activist youth street movement, not a formal organization, that mobilizes, sometimes peacefully and sometimes violently, against whoever opposes the Pacto Histórico. Last night we already saw violence in the low-income areas of Bogotá, and we saw riot police called out in Cali. It is not always that someone gives an order to go out and protest, even though there have been accusations of exactly that, for example against Petro ally and senator Gustavo Bolívar.

Colombian law says the runner-up in the presidential election gets a seat in the Senate, so Cepeda will return to the Senate, where he will lead the opposition. He already has a bloc of some 30 legislators behind him and is a Senate veteran, so he will be a very powerful voice.

What do I hope will happen?

I hope de la Espriella will have a plan to lift up the poor and the marginalized, and Colombia has plenty. He says he will govern for all the people, and I hope so. This was a very polarized election. People who feel excluded from opportunity largely voted for Cepeda and now feel they have lost. De la Espriella has a window of opportunity to do what he said in his election-night speech and govern for all Colombians. I hope he understands that, with less than 50% of the vote, the only mandate he has is for an inclusive, conciliatory approach.

His administration is inheriting a fiscal mess, as the current government has run up the debt. I hope that, along with Vice President-elect José Manuel Restrepo, they can properly manage this and navigate Colombia’s economy through rough times. Because the government will need to find dollars to make these debt payments, the peso will eventually fall, unless the US does something stupid to wreck its own currency. The opposition will try to blame the new administration for this, even though they planted the seeds for these fiscal weeds that will soon sprout.

I hope Colombia becomes safer for Colombians, and that the guerrilla groups, the mafias, and the drug traffickers shrink. It may be utopian to think they will be eliminated in four years, but my hope is that Colombia becomes safer, especially for poor Colombians, who are by far the primary victims of these groups. In recent years, unlike in the old days, the rich have been largely insulated from the depredations of guerrillas and extortionists, but the poor continue to suffer. So I hope de la Espriella goes after these groups, but in a way that respects and protects human rights, something Uribe failed to do during his time in power, leading to many innocent people becoming victims not just of the guerrillas, but of state violence. I sincerely hope, and will be watching closely, that the state becomes a protector of the poor rather than a victimizer of them. Many poor Colombians suffered under Uribe’s watch, and many continue to suffer under the current Petro government, which has simply not protected them from the depredations of groups like the ELN, the Clan del Golfo, and the FARC dissidents.

People to watch

• Armando Benedetti. The interior minister has been Petro’s consigliere, but he also seems to hold some kind of strange power over Petro. The US government, or in other words Donald Trump, placed him on the Clinton List, which will complicate his life personally and professionally once he is out of office.
• Daniel Quintero. The former Medellín mayor is already battling serious corruption charges, and while he found a friend in Gustavo Petro, that protection will no longer be there. There will be no place for him in the incoming government, and he still has to face all these charges. With no power to protect his allies, many of them also indicted, will they turn on him and spill the frijoles?
• Álvaro Uribe. No doubt pleased, he didn’t get his first choice, which was his own candidate, but he and de la Espriella clearly share a fondness, and their families go way back. De la Espriella’s father was a Liberal Party supporter of Uribe, and Uribe rewarded him with a juicy notary appointment decades ago.

A win for the business sector

Objectively, this is a win for the business sector. Business groups like Fenalco and ANDI have expressed their support for de la Espriella, and he has expressed his explicit support for the petroleum and mining sectors. I just don’t see any major businesses or trade groups that came out in support of Cepeda. Certainly Cepeda and Petro have support from individual businesspeople, but as organized industry groups, I just haven’t seen it anywhere.

Anecdotes

The polls closed barely twelve hours ago, and overnight I tried to gather the opinions of a few people. This is not a scientific poll, and to be clear and fair, Finance Colombia is a business-oriented publication, and I simply know a lot more businesspeople and entrepreneurs than I know community organizers and militant activists. So this is not any kind of objective sample; it is simply personal feedback gathered the very night of the election:

• A member of the Wayúu community in La Guajira told me they went for Cepeda, so they are not pleased.
• In a split family, both spouses professionals from humble backgrounds, the husband, a labor lawyer who contracts with the government, went for Cepeda, but his wife, a middle manager at a bank, went for de la Espriella.
• A psychologist who originally voted for Sergio Fajardo in the first round told me she voted blank, because she saw both candidates as extremists, a left-wing extremist versus a right-wing extremist, and she was disgusted at her country’s polarization.
• A police officer commented to me, “Better this loco than the other loco,” meaning he would take de la Espriella but considered both of them crazy. I think this is a common sentiment; it was not an endorsement of one so much as thinking the other was the worse option.
• A domestic worker told me she voted for de la Espriella, hoping he will take action against rising crime and violence.
• There were pro-Cepeda protests and some street violence in the mostly poor southwest of Bogotá, but there were celebrations in parts of the north of the city, and in the high-income El Poblado area of Medellín the celebrations looked like Colombia had just won the World Cup. Even where I live, in a rural area about an hour from Medellín, you could hear spontaneous car parades and firecrackers all through the night.
• Small businesspeople and Colombian investors I know have, to a person, been celebrating.

The most important takeaway, and something Colombians should be proud of, is that they have just held a peaceful, free, and fair election. Not every country can do that. A lot of hard work remains, and a lot can still go wrong. Count on Finance Colombia to bring you timely updates and analysis.

Before we start, I will caveat this short note with my belief that neither run-off candidate on June 21 will prove a solution to Colombia’s issues. The talk of the cafes and bars is that these are the weakest second-round choices in recent memory, and we’ve had some poor ones. Their failings are numerous and are perhaps highlighted by the zealots on both sides of this uber-polarized situation, competing ever harder to throw mud at the other side. Some of the TV advertising is frankly nauseating.

This is more a quick chat about where Donald Trump’s own personal moral compass lies. We already saw with the pardon he granted to convicted former Honduran President Hernández, who was serving 45 years for drug and weapons offenses, that he is more than capable of looking past his own self-proclaimed values on drugs if the offender shares the same political persuasion.

Abelardo will, of course, be delighted that his hero and role model has backed him. He appears to share a scary number of his values and numerous other positions, including withdrawal from institutions such as the United Nations. However, others wonder if it might prove as much of a hindrance as a help, but that remains to be seen on June 21.

The irony (carried over from Hernández) lies in Trump’s support of Abelardo, a week after the extradition to the US of Alex Saab, a mega drug lord allied to Nicolás Maduro, to finally meet his judgment day. Saab is a very inconvenient truth for Abelardo, as he was the man who mounted a vociferous defense of one of Colombia’s most notorious criminals – and Saab is far from the only drug lord he has defended. Of course, there is the argument that everyone deserves a just defense, especially if they have bottomless riches; again, that is a decision for one’s personal conscience.

Finally, last week, we had Washington’s War Ministry announce the sinking of yet another speedboat allegedly laden with drugs, although as yet there has been no proof despite 60-plus such attacks at the cost of more than 200 lives. Again, we are reminded of Washington’s incoherent attitude toward drug cartels – an attitude heavily dependent on one’s political beliefs.

God Bless The Donald.

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