On 3 June, Donald Trump entered Colombia’s election.

From the White House, he issued his “complete and total endorsement” of Abelardo de la Espriella, attacked his opponent Iván Cepeda by name, and told Colombians that their vote was “very important” to their country’s relationship with the United States.

On Sunday, Colombians return to the polls for the second round of the presidential election. The contest will help decide the fate of Colombia’s first left government — and the future of a hemisphere now facing a new campaign of recolonisation from Washington.

Cepeda stands for the continuation of the Pacto Histórico’s unfinished transformation: higher wages, land reform, public pensions, sovereign development, and the pursuit of peace after decades of internal war.

De la Espriella carries the counter-project in its most naked form. The lawyer of paramilitaries and oligarchs promises mega-prisons, fracking, austerity, militarised security, and the end of peace talks. Last week, Cepeda filed a criminal complaint accusing him of financing paramilitary groups through a fake peace foundation. De la Espriella denies criminal wrongdoing. His record and programme point in the same direction: the restoration of the old war, the old impunity, the old hierarchy.

De la Espriella’s embrace of that hierarchy is no secret. He is a US citizen who says he voted for Trump and is a Republican in the United States. He has called for a new Plan Colombia, the return of US military bases, the dollarisation of Colombia’s economy, and the re-establishment of relations with Israel. Trump’s endorsement was only the latest intervention, after Argentina and Honduras, in a clear strategy: to help install leaders who have already pledged themselves to Washington’s order.

His message to Colombians was equally clear: carry forward the path opened by Petro and the Pacto Histórico, and the empire will make you pay.

Bernie Moreno, a Republican Senator for Ohio, who was born in Bogotá and grew up in Florida, had already travelled to Colombia as an accredited international observer for the first round while reportedly seeking to broker alliances between right-wing candidates. Rubio’s State Department then moved against Petro’s agenda in New York, blocking meetings and public appearances.

Across the hemisphere, the Donroe Doctrine seeks to turn Latin America back into a strategic reserve of land, resources and labour for US power.

Under Petro and the Pacto Histórico, Colombia has broken too many rules of that order. Its first left government has challenged Israel’s genocide in Gaza. It has sought a path beyond extractivism. It has placed peace, land and labour back at the centre of politics. As world-renowned economists wrote this week, Colombia has begun to show that another economic path is possible: higher incomes, reduced poverty, stronger labour, democratic agrarian reform, renewed industrial policy and a just energy transition pursued together. For the architects of recolonisation, that example must be contained before it spreads.

The Progressive International is on the ground in Bogotá for the second round. Through the Observatory, our team is monitoring interference, documenting coercion, and working to ensure that the world understands the forces now bearing down on Colombia’s democracy. You can support that work here.

On Sunday, Colombians will cast their ballots. Around them, Washington is trying to cast its shadow.

Latest from the Movement

South Africa’s movements resist xenophobic terror

The Progressive International’s Observatory issued a Red Alert on the campaign of xenophobic terror menacing South Africa, where armed groups linked to March and March are driving migrants and minority communities from homes, businesses, clinics and schools. With thousands already displaced and a 30 June “deadline” now being used to escalate intimidation, migrants are being made scapegoats for a crisis they did not create: mass unemployment, collapsed services, hunger and corruption. Progressive forces — including Abahlali baseMjondolo, SAFTU and SERI — are fighting back against the attempt to fracture the working class and shield the architects of immiseration from accountability. Their fight is ours.

Economists defend Colombia’s transformation

Sixty-seven economists, scholars and public policy figures have signed an open letter in support of Colombia’s economic transformation under President Gustavo Petro. Coordinated by the Progressive International and Centro de Pensamiento Vida, the letter argues that Colombia has begun to chart another path for the Global South: raising incomes, reducing poverty, strengthening labour, pursuing democratic agrarian reform, recovering industrial policy and beginning a just energy transition together. Published ahead of the 21 June presidential runoff, the signatories — including Thomas Piketty, Jayati Ghosh, Ha-Joon Chang, Yanis Varoufakis, Isabella Weber and Jason Hickel — warn that Colombia now stands at a crossroads: a return to austerity, extraction and dependence, or the defence and deepening of a development project built around dignified work, land reform, public capacity and climate justice.

Garment workers win bargaining power in Bangladesh

In Bangladesh, workers at AKH Stitch Art Ltd. have won a historic victory. On 21 May, under the supervision of the Department of Labour, the Sommilito Sramik Union at AKH Stitch Art Ltd. was elected as the factory’s first Collective Bargaining Agent, securing 1,472 of 2,230 valid votes — roughly two thirds of ballots cast. The victory comes less than eighteen months after the union was officially registered, marking a rapid advance for freedom of association, workplace democracy and collective bargaining in Bangladesh’s garment sector. The Progressive International congratulates its member, the Sommilito Garments Sramik Federation, and the workers whose organisation, unity and determination have opened a new front for improving conditions, defending rights and building power on the factory floor.

Our History

15 June - The Espionage Act

The Espionage Act was enacted in the United States on 15 June 1917.

“Creatures of passion, disloyalty, and anarchy must be crushed out,” said President Woodrow Wilson as he urged Congress to support the legislation. For over a century, the Espionage Act has been used to do just that: Silence dissent and preserve the continuity of the US empire.

Learn more about this tool of reaction with this beautifully designed Instagram carousel.

Art of the Week

Miguel Guevara is a Bogotá-based artist from Palmira, the agricultural capital of Colombia where his grandfather used to cut sugar cane. Guevara recalls “the rain of ash falling” in his childhood neighbourhood from the now illegal burning of waste cane – the main source of air pollution in the city.

Guevara’s works speak to the exploitation of workers in the region due to capitalist expansion which dates back to the 17th century. The featured drawing, created using charcoal on handmade sugar cane paper, is titled Quema de cultivo (Crop burning) however other works in the series include draw attention to the Labour movement, including the famous strikes at the Riopaila sugar mill in 1976.