Trump endorses far-right Colombian candidate De La Espriella ahead of runoff

Colombia may be on the verge of electing a far-right president who has mused about how much fun he had blowing up cats as a child. On Sunday, in a shocking result, Abelardo De La Espriella received the most votes in the first-round election, netting 44 percent of ballots cast.

The candidate from the ruling left-wing Pacto Histórico coalition, Iván Cepeda, came in second with 41 percent. Paloma Valencia—who represents Colombia's more institutional right and is aligned with the disgraced former President Álvaro Uribe—took home a much lower-than-expected 7 percent. De La Espriella and Cepeda will now face each other in a June 21 runoff.

Trump's Endorsement

Trump was relatively quiet about the election until Wednesday morning, when he issued a soaring endorsement of De La Espriella on social media.

"Because of his tremendous accomplishments in life," Trump wrote, "and his political support for me, personally, it is my Honor to give Abelardo my Complete and Total endorsement."

The most surprising thing about this endorsement might be that it didn't happen sooner. The U.S. has a long, ugly, and violent history of meddling in Latin American democracy. In recent years, Republicans—including top Trump administration officials—have taken a special interest in a new breed of aspiring strongman, championing the likes of Argentina's President Javier Milei, Chile's José Antonio Kast, El Salvador's Nayib Bukele, and Ecuador's Daniel Noboa.

Senator Bernie Moreno's Role

Lately, it seems, for guidance on how to approach Colombia, Trump has turned to Colombian-born Ohio Senator Bernie Moreno.

The former car dealer hasn't been shy about his dislike of Colombia's current left-wing president, Gustavo Petro, or his affinity for De La Espriella. Last October, when Moreno met with Trump to discuss Latin American politics, he brought the president a fake image of Petro in an orange jumpsuit. In March, when Moreno posed for pictures embracing De La Espriella, the pair flashed smiles while delivering the candidate's signature military-style salute.

Moreno's interventions in Colombia have not been merely symbolic. He has pushed, for instance, for the U.S. to impose sanctions on Petro and his family; the Treasury Department did so on the grounds that the president has "allowed drug cartels to flourish and refused to stop this activity."

When Cepeda was ahead in the polls, days before Moreno traveled to the country to serve as an accredited election observer for Sunday's elections (as part of a larger delegation from the U.S.), the Ohio senator suggested that election officials should invalidate votes from "parts of the country that are not secure." Pleased with what he saw on the ground on Sunday, Moreno instead praised the country's electoral process after polls closed and congratulated De La Espriella, who thanked the senator for his "support during Sunday's electoral process."

On Tuesday, Moreno told reporters that he had "vetted" the candidate and found him to be "impeccable." The next day, Trump issued his endorsement.

De La Espriella's Profile

In many ways, the thumbs-up was to be expected. Aesthetically, De La Espriella has many of the trappings of other far-right strongmen Republicans have come to love. He is a showy, self-styled "outsider" to politics with a penchant for donning the jersey of his country's soccer team, threatening to exact revenge on the left, and cozying up to Trump.

While he has campaigned on vaguely populist rhetoric, he likes to wear Louis Vuitton loafers, buy $10,000 bottles of alcohol, and run his mouth. In one television appearance, he admitted to having tied firecrackers to cats as a child to watch them explode. "It was terrible," he laughed, "but I enjoyed it."

Moreno's showboating and odd confessions aside, however, the U.S. right seems to value candidates who will welcome U.S. presence in their country and pursue a like-minded brand of authoritarianism. De La Espriella has proposed opening...