On August 7, 2026, Abelardo de la Espriella — a Trump-backed lawyer nicknamed "El Tigre" — was inaugurated as President of Colombia at the Pichincha Battalion military base in Cali. His first public words as president: "I have come to close a long chapter of national resignation and, together with the people, embark on the most profound transformation of our destiny."
He replaced Gustavo Petro, who left behind a fiscal disaster and a country begging for a course correction.
Camilo Guzmán, Executive Director of the think tank Libertank, put the inheritance in blunt terms in comments reported by Fox News: "President de la Espriella inherits a house with the roof leaking and the safe empty." How empty? The 2026 deficit is tracking around 6.5-6.7% of GDP. The financing gap is close to $34 billion. The implicit medium-term fiscal adjustment sitting on his desk is roughly five points of GDP.
That's what leftist governance buys you. A ransacked treasury and a note that says "good luck."
But here's what makes de la Espriella's rise significant beyond Colombia's borders. He's not an isolated case. He's part of a pattern. Javier Milei in Argentina. Daniel Noboa in Ecuador. José Antonio Kast in Chile. One by one, the Western Hemisphere has been throwing out its progressive experiments and replacing them with leaders who sound a lot like the guy in the White House.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio connected the dots publicly: "For the first time in 15-20 years, the overwhelming majority of the countries in the Western Hemisphere are now led by pro-American leaders and governments since @POTUS was elected president."
That's not a coincidence and it's not a vibe. It's a geopolitical realignment.
De la Espriella made the alignment explicit on day one: "I send a firm message to the Colombian people: The time has come to restore order, authority, and freedom." The United States responded with $1 billion in pledged security assistance — the kind of partnership that becomes possible when two governments actually share the same priorities.
The left-wing holdouts in the region — Venezuela, Cuba, Nicaragua — are now the outliers, not the trend. The "authoritarian strongman" narrative that American media used to frame every right-leaning leader south of Texas doesn't hold up when the voters keep voluntarily choosing them.
We spent years hearing that Trump was an aberration. A fluke born of uniquely American grievances that couldn't possibly translate across borders or languages. The smart set in foreign policy circles assured us that populist conservatism was a cul-de-sac.
The "be more like Latin America" argument is still available. It just doesn't mean what it used to.