President Trump inserted himself into Colombia’s presidential election on Tuesday night, energetically endorsing a right-wing candidate in what has been a pattern of putting his finger on the scale of foreign elections during his second term.
Posting on Truth Social, Mr. Trump congratulated Abelardo De La Espriella, who advanced in Sunday’s election to a second round in June, when he will face a candidate from the party of the sitting left-wing president, Gustavo Petro.
“The results of this Election are very important to the future of Colombia and its relationship to the United States,” Mr. Trump wrote in a post full of praise for Mr. De La Espriella, whom he referred to by his campaign moniker, “El Tigre,” or The Tiger. “Because of his tremendous accomplishments in life, and his political support for me, personally, it is my Honor to give Abelardo my Complete and Total Endorsement.”
Mr. Trump, whose support of like-minded leaders has helped to fuel a right-wing wave in Latin America, also characterized the candidate’s rival in the runoff, Iván Cepeda, as a “Radical Left Marxist.”
Mr. Cepeda’s campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
On Tuesday night, Mr. De La Espriella thanked Mr. Trump for his “decisive support,” promising to strengthen U.S.-Colombia relations “like never before.”
“It’s fundamental to understand that the United States is decisive to fight crime, narcoterrorism and liberate Colombia once and for all from so much pain and so much violence,” he said in an interview with a Colombian news channel.
An endorsement from the U.S. president, which in the past was all but unthinkable, has become a wild card in elections in the region. Last year, Mr. Trump endorsed a right-wing candidate in Honduras’s election who went on to win. He also supported the party of the Argentine president, Javier Milei, in a decisive midterm election.
Mr. Trump’s chosen candidate in Colombia is a 47-year-old criminal defense lawyer who has never held office. After spending much of his career in Florida, and more recently, in Florence, Italy, Mr. De La Espriella returned to Colombia last year to run for his country’s highest post.
He has pitched himself as an outsider in the vein of Mr. Trump, an efficient cost-cutter like Mr. Milei and a hard-liner on security similar to El Salvador’s Nayib Bukele. That message has proved to be potent to a population alarmed by a resurgent armed conflict and a rise in violent and organized crime.
Mr. De La Espriella rose late in the campaign — on a message that also revolved around traditional values and vanquishing the left — overcoming an establishment candidate on the right who had counted on the support of some of Colombia’s most powerful politicians. Mr. De La Espriella captured more than 43 percent of the vote in Sunday’s election, a few percentage points more than Mr. Cepeda.
Because neither candidate’s support surpassed 50 percent, they will face off again on June 21.
Mr. Cepeda, 63, a solemn senator best known for his advocacy for victims of Colombia’s armed conflict, ran a far less flashy campaign than Mr. De La Espriella. But experts say that he was buoyed by voters’ support for Mr. Petro, Colombia’s first left-wing president, and his efforts to address poverty and represent historically marginalized groups. The two belong to the Pacto Histórico party.
Mr. De La Espriella, who once boasted of a lavish lifestyle abroad, has in the past been scrutinized by Colombian journalists over the source of his fortune and his links to Colombian clients embroiled in controversies. The most flagrant of these is Alex Saab, a billionaire tycoon and fixer for Nicolás Maduro, the Venezuelan leader taken into custody by the United States. U.S. prosecutors accused Mr. Saab of laundering millions of dollars intended for Venezuela’s poor.
As Mr. De La Espriella rose in the polls, he gained the backing of U.S. Republican lawmakers on the right, from Representative Maria Elvira Salazar of Florida to Senator Bernie Moreno of Ohio. On Tuesday, before Mr. Trump posted his full-throated endorsement of Mr. De La Espriella, Mr. Moreno held a call with reporters in which he said U.S. officials had “vetted” Mr. De La Espriella and found him to be “impeccable.”
Mr. Moreno, who is originally from Colombia, traveled to the country over the weekend to monitor the election. He said it had gone smoothly, remarking on the transparency and orderliness of the process.
Mr. Petro, the president, has said there were irregularities amounting to fraud, which analysts say raises concerns that he is sowing distrust in the country’s electoral institutions and potentially laying the groundwork for protests. Mr. Cepeda, who originally questioned the count, has accepted the results.
On Tuesday, Mr. Petro wrote on X, “When one country interferes in another country’s decisions, freedom dies. I call on all Colombians to vote freely and not allow ourselves to become either slaves or anyone’s colony.”
Luis Ferré-Sadurní and Genevieve Glatsky contributed reporting.
