Colombia’s President backed down and agreed to facilitate the return of his countrymen from the US, but a combative open letter Gustavo Petro wrote to Donald Trump has emerged as a toast for those opposed to Washington’s mass deportations.

Petro had initially turned back US military planes carrying deported immigrants. This set off an exchange between him and Trump, who announced tariffs and sanctions despite Colombia being a US ally in Latin America.

Late on Sunday – early Monday, India time – Colombian foreign minister Luis Gilberto Murillo said in a statement: “We have overcome the impasse with the US government..The government of Colombia... has the presidential plane ready to facilitate the return of Colombians who were going to arrive in the country this morning on deportation flights.”

The White House also said Colombia has agreed to accept the migrants after all and Washington will not impose its threatened penalties.

Earlier, after the Trump administration announced the sanctions, Petro had posted a caustic letter on X (formerly Twitter).

“Trump, I don’t like traveling to the U.S. much, it’s a bit boring, but I confess there are worthy things,” Colombia’s President had written in Spanish. “I like to go to the Black neighborhoods of Washington…I confess that I like Walt Whitman, Paul Simon, Noam Chomsky, and Miller…I confess that Sacco and Vanzetti, who have my blood, in the history of the US, are memorable and I follow them. They were murdered for being labour leaders with the electric chair by the fascists who are inside the US just as they are in my country,” he wrote.

“I don’t like your oil, Trump, you are going to end the human species with greed. Maybe one day, along with a drink of whisky — which I accept despite my gastritis — we can talk frankly about this, but it’s difficult because you consider me an inferior race, and I am not, nor is any Colombian.”

Petro raised the topic of American intervention in Latin America, referencing Salvador Allende

the former President of Chile, and Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s classic One Hundred Years of Solitude.

“If you are looking for a stubborn person, that’s me, period,” Petro wrote. “You can try to stage a coup with your economic power and arrogance, like you did with Allende. But I will die by my law, I withstood torture, and I resist you. I don’t want slave owners on Colombia’s side, we already had many and we freed ourselves…This is the land of the yellow butterflies, the beauty of Remedios, but also of Colonel Aureliano Buendía, one of whom I am, perhaps the last.”

Petro declared that the Colombians would win back the critically important trade channel of Panama Canal.

“Our peoples are somewhat fearful, somewhat shy, they are naive and kind, lovers, but they will know how to win back the Panama Canal, which you took from us with violence. Two hundred heroes from all over Latin America lie in Bocas del Toro, now Panama, before Colombia, whom you murdered.”

He mentioned Abraham Lincoln, the Republican President who abolished slavery.

“You don’t like our freedom, fine. I do not shake hands with white slave owners. I shake the hands of libertarian whites, heirs of Lincoln, and of the Black and white rural boys from the U.S., in front of whose graves I cried and prayed on a battlefield, which I reached after walking through the mountains of Tuscany and after saving myself from COVID. They are the US, and before them, I kneel, before no one else.”

He added: “You will never dominate us. The warrior who rode our lands, shouting freedom, and who is called Bolívar, opposes you.”

“Let our people plant corn, which was discovered in Colombia, and feed the world.”

After Petro turned back US military planes, Trump imposed a 25 per cent tariff on Colombian imports and said he would raise them to 50 per cent after a week besides imposing financial sanctions,a travel ban on Colombian government officials and their associates, and revoke their visas.

Petro’s decision of not accepting migrants may have been influenced by reports from Brazil that deportees arrived from the US in handcuffs and upon arrival some of them alleged mistreatment during the flight.

Brazil’s foreign ministry has said it plans to seek explanations from the US government over the “degrading treatment.”