No. of Recommendations: 10
And again, if they get pissy over a Truth Social post, then what does that say about our relationship with them?
Trump uses Truth Social as an official conduit for directly expressing foreign policy. You can damn well expect that they will react to a threat of a 25% punitive tariff - rising to 50% - across all of their goods with their largest trading partner. The most likely reaction is that they will start immediately prioritizing efforts to minimize having that vulnerability going forward. The most obvious way to do that is to accelerate moving towards China.
Would I rather Trump not spike the football so loudly on social media? Yes I would; I don't care for this level of ham-fistedness over stuff like this - I'd rather he deliver the message in private and at 110 decibels if that's what it took.
It didn't help, of course - but even the threatening at 110 decibels in private has consequences. Again, as Mike Johnson said, this puts Colombia "on notice" - on notice that Trump will think little of inflicting really bad economic harm with very little advance notice on a very minor issue (military vs. civilian flights). When you've mostly had good relations with your much bigger and stronger neighbor, but he turns very hostile over a minor matter and threatens you, you will take notice and change your behavior towards them. In the immediate term, you'll do what they ordered you to do - but over the longer term, you'll really start investing in ways to protect yourself from them as best you can. Unfortunately for us and our longer term foreign policy, those "best" ways are going to involve moving faster towards China and other powers.
