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Colombian President Gustavo Petro ordered his country’s state-run oil company to sell off its operations in the U.S. on Tuesday, saying they would reinvest the funds into green energy.
Petro announced the move during a televised cabinet meeting this week, arguing the company, Ecopetrol, cannot be “for death and not for life.” The order relates to a planned joint venture between Ecopetrol and the U.S.-owned oil company Occidental Petroleum, or Oxy. The deal was set to produce some 90,000 barrels of oil per day, but Petro now says he opposes it because it relies on fracking.
“I want that operation to be sold, and for the money to be invested in clean energies,” Petro said in the meeting. “We are against fracking, because fracking is the death of nature, and the death of humanity.”
“There is no other way for humanity but to stop the path of fossil fuels,” he added. “This is not happening because the oil companies are beating us, because we are afraid of them. I am not afraid of them.”
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Colombia’s selloff of oil efforts in the U.S. comes after President Donald Trump threatened massive tariffs against the contry. ( Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images / Getty Images)
The move comes just weeks after Petro backed down to President Donald Trump and allowed the U.S. to move forward with deporting Colombian illegal immigrants out of the U.S. and back to their home country.
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In late January, American officials sent two flights of Colombian illegal aliens as part of Trump’s deportation program. Petro rejected the flights, writing that the U.S. cannot “treat Colombian migrants as criminals.”
Trump struck back immediately, vowing 25% tariffs on all goods from Colombia, a travel ban on Colombian government officials and other steep financial sanctions. He said the tariffs would reach as high as 50% by next week and insisted the migrants being sent back were “illegal criminals.”
Colombian migrants stand in shackles as they prepare to enter a plane for deportation at the Marcos A. Gelabert de Albrook Airport in Panama City. (AP Photo/Agustin Herrera / AP Images)
Petro initially retaliated with his own 25% tariffs on Colombian exports into the U.S., insisting he would not accept the return of migrants who were not treated with “dignity and respect” and who had arrived shackled or on military planes.
But amid intense political pressure from within his own government, the former Marxist guerrilla fighter acquiesced to U.S. demands.
President Trump signed dozens of executive orders on his first day in office, and he continues to sign more. (Melina Mara-Pool/Getty Images / Getty Images)
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The White House confirmed later that weekend that Colombia’s president had caved “to all of President Trump’s terms, including the unrestricted acceptance of all illegal aliens from Colombia returned from the United States, including on U.S. military aircraft, without limitation or delay.”
Fox News’ Michael Dorgan, the Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report
