Xplosive Diplomacy: Petro, Trump, and the Risks of Social Media Rhetoric

Image Courtesy: EPA Images via Free Malaysia Today

On the 26th January 2025, Colombian President Gustavo Petro refused to accept two repatriation flights from the United States carrying deported migrants. In what has been described as a ‘major diplomatic standoff’, Trump responded on Truth Social announcing a slew of sanctions - including emergency 25% tariffs, travel bans for Colombian diplomats and enhanced border inspections of Colombian Nationals and Cargo - asserting that ‘these measures are just the beginning’.  Despite his initial condemnation of the flights and refusal to accept them, Petro rapidly backed down from his combative stance against the US leader within hours, instead permitting the flights to enter as planned.   

The spat between the Colombian President and Donald Trump speaks to broader shifts in diplomatic negotiations, facilitated in part by the rise of social media. Twitter diplomacy, otherwise known as Twiplomacy (now perhaps more aptly termed Xplomacy), is just one subsection of the growing practice of digital diplomacy occurring across the world, which has had significant impacts on the conduct of diplomatic processes. While this form of diplomacy can serve to engage the public, it runs the risk of escalating tensions between leaders and officials via ‘twitter spats’, or promising more than policies ultimately come to deliver. 

Both Petro and Trump boast significant social media presences and followings. Petro has 8 million followers on X, one of the largest followings of any current Latin American leader. Trump has the same number of followers on Truth Social, which he uses more frequently than for his commentary on government actions - despite being the eighth most followed person on X with over 100 million followers. Trump was suspended from the latter in 2021, although his account was reinstated in November of 2022 under the ownership of Elon Musk, now the head of Trump’s new Department of Government Efficiency. Trump is no stranger to the inflammatory potential of Twiplomacy; in 2018, for example, his combative comments heightened tensions between the President and North Korean Leader Kim Jong Un. The fact that Petro was communicating on X and Trump on Truth Social underscores the risk of these channels leading rulers to speak at cross purposes - and even cross platforms - to an audience of viewers more so than the individual (or state) with whom they are engaging.  

X-plosive rhetoric

The U-turn on Petro’s part, and the reputational impacts on both him and his nation, were arguably magnified by his conduct on X. A ‘keen user of social media’, Petro accompanied the refusal to accept the planes with a series of tweets both broadcasting and explaining the situation to his followers, condemning the US for treating Colombian citizens as ‘delinquents’. He responded to Trump’s emergency tariffs with a lengthy retaliatory comment, which remains pinned on his account implying the US were ‘slavers’ and linking Trump’s measures to ‘what they did to Allende’, referring to the US’s role in inciting a military coup to topple Chilean ruler Salvador Allende in 1973, which resulted in a 17-year military dictatorship under Augusto Pinochet. He responded with similar tariffs against the US, claiming ‘Your [Trump’s] blockade does not scare me’. 

This fiery and impassioned rhetoric contrasts with the actions ultimately taken by the administration. Petro made no personal comment on backing down from his initial position, instead simply reposting the official Colombian government communication, which announced that the impasse between the two nations had been resolved. The highly publicised social media spat also obscured the mediative processes of more traditional forms of diplomatic relations which occur behind closed doors. The Latin Times reported that officials worked behind the scenes to resolve the standoff between the two presidents, reportedly through personally reaching out to contacts in the US government. 

While Petro’s angry diatribe against Trump speaks to legitimate concerns about Trump’s hyper-aggressive stance towards the region, his reversal arguably contributed both to the souring of relations between the two nations and the international reach of the story. For example, the disagreement and the popularity of the story can be contrasted with Mexico’s quiet refusal only the day before to accept similar flights. The situation, initially reported by NBC, was confirmed to Reuters directly by government officials, rather than through aggressive comments on social media channels which make an easily sensationalised and therefore a more marketable news story. When commenting on the resolution of the disagreement between Colombia and the US, president Claidia Sheinbaum stated that ‘Dialogue and respect must prevail’, pointing to the nation's more cautious and meditative diplomatic stance towards their neighbour- perhaps to avoid similar unwanted international attention and maintain a more cautious approach when negotiating with the new Trump administration, not wanting to overplay their hand too soon. 

Petro’s social media use has undermined both his domestic and foreign policy conduct in the past. In 2023, he entered a Twitter spat with Nayib Bukele regarding their divergent security policies. Petro compared Colombia’s homicide rates with those of El Salvador, boasting of how Colombia builds ‘universities’, rather than ‘prisons’, alluding to the controversial crackdown on gang violence in El Salvador. Similar to his spat with Trump, this did little to influence the foreign policy outputs of either nation or affect their domestic policy on prisons. Earlier in the same year, Petro posted a tweet announcing that four children who had gone missing in the Amazon had been found, which he later apologised for being based on false information (the children were ultimately found weeks later, and their story made into the Netflix show The Lost Children).

While Petro has the freedom to express whatever opinions he chooses on the president as an individual citizen, Xplomacy can often serve to overshadow or even conflict with official diplomatic developments and highlight the conflict between countries’ historic international relations and leaders’ personal ideologies. Petro has faced domestic condemnation for his comments, which threatened the nation’s historically close relations with the US. The US received over 29% of Colombian exports in 2024, making many within the nation concerned that their leader’s inflammatory remarks would damage the nation’s economic output. While Xplomacy brings leaders closer to their electorate through allowing them to speak to them, it also allows leaders to speak for their nation and its people in ways which may conflict with national interest.