Trump congratulates Abelardo de la Espriella amid contested Colombia vote
Trump congratulated Colombian presidential candidate
After the first vote, Trump congratulated Abelardo De La Espriella, known to many as ‘El Tigre’. Although not officially called, the narrow margin signals a potential shift to the right for Colombia. (Reuters.)
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President Donald Trump congratulated conservative lawyer and businessman Abelardo de la Espriella on becoming president of Colombia at the White House on Monday. Although he is narrowly ahead and the favorite over left-wing Senator Ivan Cepeda, officials have yet to officially confirm the result.
With 99.9% of the votes counted, de la Espriella had 49.7%, ahead of Cepeda’s 48.7%. De la Espriella, known as “El Tigre” to his supporters, dominated the country’s mountainous interior and the vote-rich state of Antioquia, while Cepeda won in the capital Bogota and performed well in the coastal regions, following trends in the last presidential election.
Cepeda challenged the results, citing irregularities at thousands of polling stations. However, canceling the election would be an unprecedented event in Colombian history.
If de la Espriella holds out, it would reflect a continent-wide shift to the right seen in recent election results in Chile, Ecuador, Bolivia and Peru, where conservative Keiko Fujimori appears poised to win the presidency.
ANTI-CARTEL HARDLINER CHANNELS TRUMP IS WORKING TO END COLOMBIA’S LEFT ERA IN MAJOR ELECTIONS
Right-wing presidential candidate Abelardo de la Espriella, from Colombia’s Defensores de la Patria movement, delivers a speech to his supporters at a campaign rally in Palmira, near Cali, Colombia, on May 14, 2026. Presidential elections will be held in Colombia on May 31. (Joaquin Sarmiento/AFP via Getty Images)
Donald Trump congratulated de la Espriella during the signing ceremony at the White House on Monday. Trump told reporters: “He called me last night and thanked me for my support. He won. He won the election.” Asked about relations between the United States and Colombia, Trump said things will be “a lot better. It’ll be better. He’ll be a great president.”
The election featured two candidates representing opposite poles of the Colombian political spectrum. De la Espriella, known as ‘El Tigre’ to his supporters, has benefited from the enthusiastic support of Donald Trump, vowed a return to former President Alvaro Uribe’s law-and-order approach and pledged an aggressive military campaign against guerrilla groups and criminal organisations, while Cepeda has vowed to continue the negotiation-based strategy of his long-time political ally Petro.
Ivan Cepeda has long been a figure on the Colombian left and served as a senator for 12 years, following a four-year term in the House of Representatives. His father, Manuel Cepeda, was a leading figure in the Colombian Communist Party and was assassinated in 1994, during a particularly bloody period of Colombia’s civil conflict.
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Presidential candidate Abelardo de la Espriella of Colombia’s Defensores de la Patria party speaks from behind bulletproof glass during his closing campaign rally in Medellin, Colombia, on May 24, 2026. Presidential elections will be held in Colombia on May 31. (Jaime Saldarriaga/AFP via Getty Images)
In the first round of the elections held on May 31, de la Espriella received 43.7% of the votes and Cepeda 40.9%, while right-wing Senator Paloma Valencia came in third place with 6.9%.
On Sunday evening, Secretary of State Marco Rubio congratulated de la Espriella on the result, saying: “The Trump Administration looks forward to working closely with your new administration to enhance regional security cooperation and end illegal immigration to the United States.”
Ivan Cepeda speaks at a campaign rally in Cali, Colombia, on June 6, 2026. The left-wing candidate will face conservative lawyer Abelardo De La Espriella in the second round presidential elections in Colombia on June 21. (AFP via Getty Images)
COLOMBIA PRESIDENT PETRO THREATENED MILITARY STRUGGLE AFTER TRUMP WARNED COLOMBIA COULD BE THE NEXT TARGET
Although the issues driving American and Colombian politics remain quite different, de la Espriella’s insurgent foreign campaign mimicked Trump’s in many ways, particularly in the sense that he held neither elected nor appointed office before winning the presidency and launched successful campaigns almost entirely outside the existing party structure.
The defining issue of safety and security also set la Espriella on a winning path; He leveraged his dictator image to strongly criticize Petro’s administration’s policy of peace through negotiations with armed groups opposing the Colombian government.
Colombian President Gustavo Petro (left) and President Donald Trump. On Wednesday, Trump said the Petro would be “next in line” amid rising tensions over U.S. military strikes and drug trafficking operations in the Caribbean. (Mauro Pimentel/AFP via Getty Images; Francis Chung/Politico/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Petro’s negotiation-based approach and restraint on military action is believed to have allowed groups such as the ELN (National Liberation Army) and various dissident elements of the FARC to regroup, increase recruitment, and regain control of key regions and drug trafficking routes.
De la Espriella vowed to return to an aggressive military campaign to retake territories from terrorist groups and cartels and promised to build “mega-prisons”, citing the policies of Nayib Bukele in El Salvador as a model for dismantling criminal groups.
A de la Espriella administration will likely signal a return to a free market economy, a reduction in government intervention in the economy, and a renewed attempt to lower taxes.
After a period of serious tensions that led to a series of bitter social media exchanges between Petro and Trump, US-Colombian relations are certain to strengthen. Historically, Colombia was the United States’ strongest ally in the region, but relations weakened significantly during Petro’s tenure.
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Political analysts will also be watching the dynamic between Colombia and Venezuela closely. De la Espriella will follow the Trump administration’s lead in approaching Bogota’s new Delcy Rodríguez administration, demanding a timeline for free and fair elections and calling on the Venezuelan government to aggressively pursue the ELN Marxist guerrilla group in the border regions where it has long been sheltered and has a close relationship with former dictator Nicolás Maduro.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
