The United States and Colombia signed two memorandums of understanding on September 8 covering civil nuclear cooperation and the mining of critical minerals and rare earths, as US Secretary of State Marco Rubio opened a three-nation tour of Latin America aimed at cementing Washington's ties with a region increasingly governed by like-minded conservative leaders.

The agreements were signed in Barranquilla rather than the Colombian capital, at a ceremony attended by Rubio, President Abelardo De La Espriella and Foreign Minister Omar Bula Escobar. The signing followed a bilateral meeting that concentrated on private-sector investment in energy, logistics and transport infrastructure, and marked Rubio's first trip to Colombia since De La Espriella took office in August.

The nuclear memorandum sets out a framework under which Colombia would draw on US technology, fuel, equipment and services as it explores civilian nuclear power, according to Colombia's foreign ministry, with both sides committing to standards derived from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and International Atomic Energy Agency safeguards. The minerals agreement establishes a non-binding basis for technical exchange, investment and regulatory cooperation intended, the ministry said, to position Colombia within supply chains for batteries, electrical infrastructure and other clean-technology industries. Officials on both sides said implementation would begin within six months.

Rubio credited the deals to what he called the new administration's break from the recent past, which saw frequent clashes between former leftist president Gustavo Petro and the Trump administration over drug trafficking allegations and security concerns. "The last four years have been an aberration between our governments, but that is changing as well," he told reporters, praising De La Espriella as a leader of "energy, strength, vision and courage" who had taken office amid an "institutional" crisis and, days later, a devastating earthquake.

De La Espriella, a right-wing populist lawyer who enjoys the backing of President Donald Trump, framed the outcome of the talks as the "Barranquilla Accords," a roadmap built around three themes he described as rebuilding the country, restoring economic growth and "safeguarding the hemisphere." He proposed establishing a standing bilateral prosperity dialogue, to be developed further in Washington, and said his government had identified opportunities with the US energy secretary in infrastructure, technology and critical minerals.

Much of the agenda was shaped by the magnitude-7.4 earthquake that struck western Colombia on August 10, which has killed at least 331 people and injured more than 4,500, with damage estimated at $9.5bn. De La Espriella thanked Washington for its disaster relief and said reconstruction would require housing, hospitals, schools, roads and productive capacity to be rebuilt largely through private investment, cooperation and financing mechanisms involving the US International Development Finance Corporation. He pledged fiscal discipline and spending efficiency in return, at a moment when Colombia's fiscal deficit stood at an equivalent of 6.4% of gross domestic product in 2025 and public debt had reached 60.5% of GDP by mid-year.

Security cooperation featured heavily in the talks. Colombia presented its "21st Century Patriot Plan," a proposal to modernise aircraft, radar, drones, air defence and special forces capacity in its campaign against armed groups and drug-trafficking networks, which Rubio said the Pentagon was already working through with Bogota on issues from radar to intelligence systems. "President Trump is willing to provide everything possible to help Colombia confront this threat," he said.

Rubio went further at a press conference, saying Washington had not ruled out establishing joint or shared military bases in Colombia to fight organised crime, comparing the arrangement to shared facilities the US operates elsewhere. He said the idea had already been raised by Colombian authorities and would proceed only with their cooperation and formal request. The prospect builds on a defence relationship dating to the 1952 Mutual Defense Assistance Agreement and deepened under Plan Colombia in the 1990s, though a 2009 accord giving the US access to seven Colombian bases was later nixed by the Constitutional Court. Rubio added that closer bilateral cooperation could allow Colombia to regain its US anti-narcotics certification in 2027, and linked Bogota's accession to the Shield of the Americas coalition to a joint campaign against criminal groups he said operate in Colombia while sheltering across the border in Venezuela.

On trade, Rubio said Colombia's request to lift the 12.5% tariff imposed on its exports could not be resolved immediately after the US Supreme Court struck down the mechanism Trump had originally used to impose it, requiring the administration instead to pursue a bilateral agreement under Section 301 of US trade law. He said two rounds of negotiations, led on the US side by trade representative Jamieson Greer, had made good progress, though there was "no announcement today."

De La Espriella also addressed Colombia's approach to Venezuela for the first time since taking office, pledging to "participate responsibly" in US-led efforts to secure regional stability and to deepen cooperation on border, migration and security matters along the two countries' 2,000km frontier.

The security push drew criticism from Colombia's opposition. Ivan Cepeda, the Historic Pact senator and former presidential candidate who lost to De La Espriella in June's run-off, said the US-Colombian anti-drugs strategy was a repeat of an approach that had failed for five decades. He said his party would insist on respect for Colombia's sovereignty and independence, and warned that any international agreement creating obligations for the Colombian state would need approval from Congress and the Constitutional Court.

Colombia is the first stop on a trip that will also take Rubio to Ecuador, where the government of Daniel Noboa has supported US military operations against drug-trafficking networks, and to Peru, now led by Keiko Fujimori. A State Department spokesperson said the visit was intended to expand cooperation against drug cartels, deepen commercial ties and reaffirm US commitment to what officials have called a "secure and prosperous Western Hemisphere." Peru has since joined the Shield of the Americas, the US-backed regional security coalition that already includes Colombia, Argentina, Ecuador and El Salvador and maintains an operational hub in Medellin.

Notably absent from the itinerary is Venezuela, despite the White House having recently finalised a deal granting it control over roughly a fifth of that country's oil reserves. Asked about the omission, Rubio told reporters "we'll get there eventually," describing the trip as "a condensed week" deliberately focused on three governments he considers newly aligned with Washington.

The visit underscores how far the region's political map has shifted in Washington's favour over the past year. Colombia, Ecuador and Peru now join Argentina under Javier Milei and Chile under Jose Antonio Kast in a bloc of right-leaning governments that have drawn closer to the Trump administration, while Venezuela has become a de facto US protectorate led by acting president Delcy Rodriguez, leaving Brazil and Mexico as the region's only major economies still governed from the left. Rubio has previously hailed that pivot as an "extraordinary achievement." Venezuela's Nicolas Maduro was removed in a US military operation in January, while communist-run Cuba, stripped of its principal regional ally, faces crippling sanctions and a US oil blockade.