Colombia’s president calls for migrants to leave jobs in the US and return home

BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) — Colombia’s president is calling connected his compatriots moving without ineligible presumption successful the United States to permission their jobs and instrumentality location arsenic soon arsenic possible.

“Wealth is lone produced by the moving people,” Gustavo Petro said successful an aboriginal greeting station connected the X platform. “Let’s physique societal wealthiness successful Colombia.”

The leftist president said his authorities would supply loans to those who instrumentality up his connection to instrumentality location and enlist successful 1 of its programs to commencement a business.

Petro made his comments pursuing a bitter feud implicit migration past play with U.S. President Donald Trump that astir triggered a commercialized warfare and rupture successful diplomatic relations betwixt the U.S. and its historical state successful South America.

Petro, successful an earlier societal media storm, accused the Trump medication of mistreating migrants who entered the U.S. illegally by handcuffing them and removing them connected subject flights to Latin America. Trump exploded erstwhile Petro denied 2 specified flights support to land.

Later, the 2 sides negotiated a truce amid protests by investors that Petro was sabotaging Colombia’s export economy, which relies heavy connected purchases from the U.S.

Colombia accepted 475 deportation flights from the U.S. from 2020 to 2024, 5th down Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico and El Salvador, according to Witness astatine the Border, an advocacy radical that tracks formation data. It accepted 124 deportation flights successful 2024.