‘The cartels and clans are ecstatic': How USAID cuts have emboldened Colombia's narcos

Telegraph

18 hours ago

US cuts to international aid spending have put Colombia's counter-narcotics operations 'on ice' – a development that experts warn will reenergise the country's notorious cartels.
For decades, the US has supported Colombia in its fight against drug trafficking and armed groups through aid spending. Since helping to end the reign of infamous drug lord Pablo Escobar in the 1990s, US defence and intelligence agencies have been instrumental in the country's counter-narcotic operations. Washington has also been instrumental in helping demobilise the leftist FARC rebels since the 2016 peace accord, ushering in a period of relative stability.
But now, following the Trump administration's freeze of nearly all funding for the US Agency for International Development (USAID), along with changes to US State Department spending, analysts and civil society leaders are sounding the alarm.
'The groups that operate outside of the law – the cartels and the clans – are happy. They're ecstatic, because now they have the freedom to do whatever they want,' said León Valencia, director of the Bogotá-based Peace and Reconciliation Foundation.
The US State Department has funded major counternarcotics operations in Colombia for years, but when president Donald Trump froze State Department spending in January, the vast majority were immediately halted.
'The entire fleet of Black Hawk helicopters was basically grounded; police units supported and trained by the US were disbanded; and programmes that were building capacity to investigate cases were all just put on ice,' said Elizabeth Dickinson, an analyst at the International Crisis Group. 'It had really wild effects.'
Although most of these programmes have resumed under provisional 30-day waivers, Ms Dickinson warned that activities beyond daily maintenance are limited. 'Imagine the uncertainty that comes from knowing that you only have 30 days of funding guaranteed. Anything that's beyond the day-to-day treading water in these counter-narcotic operations is essentially on pause,' she said. 'They're not investing in new programmes, or undertaking new investigations.'
The USAID cuts have also been 'catastrophic,' Ms Dickinson, and a dozen other experts and civil society leaders, told The Telegraph.
In recent years, Colombia received around $440 million annually in USAID assistance for more than 80 programmes, making it the largest recipient of the agency's funds in the western hemisphere, according to US government data.
While most of the programmes are not directly related to counter-narcotics, USAID-backed initiatives have helped stabilise regions still affected by armed conflict. They have created opportunities for young people at risk of recruitment by criminal gangs, supported farmers transitioning away from coca cultivation and aided the reintegration of former combatants into society. Now that funding has ceased. Ms Dickinson said that overnight the humanitarian system here in Colombia lost 70 per cent of its financing.
An official, speaking on condition of anonymity due to fear of reprisals, said that more than 50 USAID-funded programmes across the country have already been shuttered. 'It has had a big and deep effect in the most vulnerable territories,' he said. 'You can't imagine the terrible effects happening there.'
Officials warn the cuts also endanger the implementation of the peace accord with the leftist FARC rebels. FARC fought the government for more than five decades before most rebels laid down their weapons in 2016. While the deal did not end the conflict entirely, it ushered in a fragile peace. Between 2017 and 2023, the US provided $1.5 billion in support of the deal.
'I think it will create more risk of violence and more vulnerability,' said Luis Gilberto Murillo, Colombia's former foreign minister and current lawmaker, in an interview with Reuters.
Colombia's conflict began in the 1960s amid demands for land reform, with rebels promising to redistribute land and wealth concentrated among a small elite. As part of the 2016 accord, the government pledged to grant formal ownership to poor farmers willing to stop cultivating coca. Since then, the funding has helped the government map millions of acres in conflict-afflicted territories.
But that work is now on hold, according to an anonymous source within the USAID land programme.
'In terms of drug policy, we managed to positively impact the issue from a territorial, transformational perspective,' he said. 'If farmers own their land, they hardly want to risk losing it by planting illicit crops, and if it's done on a massive scale, it becomes more sustainable in the fight against this phenomenon.'
Mr Valencia added that the funding cuts have 'rendered it impossible to fulfil the peace agreement,' while Ms Dickinson said there is 'no one who will step into this gap', meaning key parts of the deal 'will not be implemented'.
The cuts also come amid a surge in violence between armed groups, which saw tens of thousands of people displaced earlier this year and left more than 100 dead. Colombia is currently grappling with eight separate armed conflicts, according to the International Committee of the Red Cross, which recently described the situation as its worst humanitarian crisis since the 2016 peace accord.
Overall, the 60-year conflict has killed at least 450,000 people; cocaine production and trafficking remain the main drivers of the ongoing violence.
But others argue that the US should not be funding programmes or public employees in Colombia at all. 'Trump is right,' President Gustavo Petro said in a televised address earlier this year, where he also characterised US foreign aid as poison. 'Take your money.'
Some also question whether the cuts will meaningfully impact drug trafficking, arguing that the US-led war on drugs has already failed, with consumption and cultivation at record highs.
Isabel Pereira, a drug policy expert at Colombia-based research organisation DeJusticia, said that such programmes 'will never be enough' to stop drug trafficking. 'Coca as a cash crop will always be more profitable than any other crop,' she said.
If the programmes had been successful, she argued, 'we wouldn't be in a situation today where we are at the highest number of hectares grown in Colombia.'
'I don't think it will have much of a differential effect because the fact of the matter is that the drug markets are always thriving,' Ms Pereira added.
Although the high profile excesses associated with narcos like Mr Escobar are less prominent. Coca cultivation in Colombia has quadrupled over the last decade, while global cocaine production doubled. Drug use has also grown steadily, with the UN noting in 2024 that 292 million people worldwide reported having consumed narcotics in the previous year.
The Colombian government, led by the country's first leftist president, Mr Petro, has already acted to reform drug policy. In October 2023, it launched a new national drug policy that aims to shift the narrative around psychoactive substances – focusing on rural development, reducing coca crops, and helping small farmers transition to the legal economy.
In February, Mr Petro said that cocaine is 'not worse than whisky' and said that, like whisky, it should be legalised. 'If somebody wants peace, the business [of drug trafficking] has to be dismantled,' Mr Petro said. 'It could be easily dismantled if they legalised cocaine in the world. It would be sold like wine.'
In March, Colombia went further, leading a landmark resolution at the UN commission on narcotic drugs, calling for reforms to the existing 60-year-old drug control system.
'The global drug regime has failed to deliver, period,' said Laura Gil, Colombia's ambassador-at-large for global drug policy, speaking on the sidelines of the Harm Reduction International conference. 'In my country, it has meant the fuelling of the internal armed conflict, it has meant thousands of deaths, and it has meant the stigma we carry as Colombians all over the world.'
Catherine Cook of Harm Reduction International said US funding had long given Washington an 'element of control' over Colombia's drug policy. 'This is a moment for countries to be able to take back control and decide what they want to prioritise,' she said.
Ms Dickinson agreed that drug policies have caused a 'very perverse fallout', but warned that cutting funding overnight 'empowers the criminal groups who are profiting from this business.'
The USAID land programme source also acknowledged that 'not everything was perfect with USAID,' but countered that, on balance, 'more good' happened than bad.
Mr Valencia, meanwhile, argued that the US's abrupt decision, if nothing else, amounted to a betrayal of its responsibilities.
'The US operation is an obligation. It is not a gift – the US is the main party responsible for consumption and the persecution of our poorest people,' he said. 'These funding cuts hurt efforts to repress trafficking, and the growers that no longer have support from the programmes. They are waiving all liability, and it is a great injustice.'