{"id":987717,"date":"2026-08-07T23:08:16","date_gmt":"2026-08-07T23:08:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/987717\/"},"modified":"2026-08-07T23:08:16","modified_gmt":"2026-08-07T23:08:16","slug":"trump-ally-abelardo-de-la-espriella-sworn-in-as-colombia-president","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/987717\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump ally Abelardo de la Espriella sworn in as Colombia president"},"content":{"rendered":"<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">Colombian President Abelardo de la Espriella took office Friday, vowing to wage war on drug-running guerrillas and usher in a new era of close ties with the United States.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">The flamboyant former lawyer brings a lurch to the right for the Andean nation, vowing to bomb jungle cocaine labs, build \u201cmega prisons\u201d and slash the size of the state.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">De la Espriella and his Vice-President Jose Manuel Restrepo cheered, embraced and performed their campaign\u2019s characteristic military salute after taking their respective oaths.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">After four years of diplomatic rows with the US, President Donald Trump now has a keen ally in Bogota.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">The 48-year-old president, who holds dual US and Colombian citizenship, has offered to launch joint military operations and even host US troops on Colombian soil.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Fifa President Gianni Infantino arrives for the inauguration of President Abelardo de la Espriella in Cali, Colombia, on Friday. Photo: AP\" data-qa=\"BaseImage-handleRenderImage-StyledImage\" class=\"e1gf69pb2 css-6ikqhs e445x7d0\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/84bb7899-7bcd-4a8a-93f8-ad39e3ac866f_4e754e41.jpg\" title=\"Fifa President Gianni Infantino arrives for the inauguration of President Abelardo de la Espriella in Cali, Colombia, on Friday. Photo: AP\"\/>Fifa President Gianni Infantino arrives for the inauguration of President Abelardo de la Espriella in Cali, Colombia, on Friday. Photo: AP<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">In a break with tradition, his inauguration took place in the tropical southwestern city of Cali, Colombia\u2019s salsa capital, not at Congress in more buttoned-down Bogota.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Colombian President Abelardo de la Espriella took office Friday, vowing to wage war on drug-running guerrillas and usher&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":987718,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5123],"tags":[342955,2841,12574,1582,133276,276,4515,12575,327,8898,69,2034,95233,342638,24720,396116,2961,224,5337,67],"class_list":["post-987717","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-abelardo-de-la-espriella","tag-argentina","tag-bogota","tag-ca","tag-cali","tag-california","tag-chile","tag-colombia","tag-congress","tag-costa-rica","tag-donald-trump","tag-fifa","tag-gustavo-petro","tag-ivan-cepeda","tag-javier-milei","tag-jose-manuel-restrepo","tag-la","tag-los-angeles","tag-losangeles","tag-united-states"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/117056746751884359","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/987717","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=987717"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/987717\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/987718"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=987717"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=987717"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=987717"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}