Colombians vote Sunday in a presidential runoff that could decide whether the cartels and armed groups flooding American streets with fentanyl get a military crackdown or more negotiated ceasefires—and ordinary Americans pay the price either way.
The stakes are immediate. Illegal armed groups in Colombia have roughly doubled their membership in the last five years, according to the BBC, expanding control of rural territories critical to drug trafficking and illegal mining. Forced displacement skyrocketed 300% between 2024 and 2025. Isabelita Mercado Pineda, a government advisor for peace in Bogotá, told the BBC: "We have not seen displacements like this for the last two decades." The cocaine flows north. The fentanyl follows. And the open southern border ensures it reaches American communities while Washington sends aid abroad instead of securing the line at home.
The two candidates offer sharply different paths. Abelardo de la Espriella—a conservative businessman, lawyer, and U.S. citizen endorsed by Donald Trump—has promised ten mega-prisons, a full-scale military confrontation with armed groups, and an end to negotiations. "Any criminal who does not surrender will be taken down," he declared. He vowed to "capture or kill" ten major narcoterrorist and organized crime leaders in his first three months, though he later walked back a claim that he would restore state control within 90 days, telling Radio Caracol: "I never said I would solve the security problem in 90 days."
His opponent, left-wing senator Iván Cepeda, is the architect of current president Gustavo Petro's "total peace" strategy, which prioritizes negotiating disarmament with armed groups. Critics say that approach has failed—pointing to the doubling of armed group membership and the expansion of FARC dissidents, the ELN, and the Clan del Golfo into territory abandoned after the 2016 peace deal. Cepeda acknowledges the strategy needs "necessary changes" but argues it prevents greater loss of life. The Guardian framed Cepeda's challenge as a struggle to attract centrist voters after his first-round defeat; the BBC centered the voices of displaced Colombians, like Edilma Martinez Flores, whose brother was murdered for failing to pay extortion: "We had no choice but to leave our things behind. They started placing bombs along the routes people travel."
The Guardian cast the election as part of a "new wave of far-right victories" across Latin America, labeling de la Espriella "far-right" repeatedly and noting his legal career defending rightwing paramilitary leaders. The BBC was more focused on the human toll of the conflict. Both outlets buried the direct consequence for Americans: the cartels that dominate Colombian territory are the same supply chains pumping fentanyl and cocaine across the southern border.
Under Petro's presidency, Colombia's poverty rate fell to its lowest level since 2012, the Guardian reported. But the security vacuum has grown. Government advisor Pineda told the BBC the current strategy provides criminal groups with "carrot but not enough stick." The army failed to occupy territories left by FARC after demobilization, leaving voids that armed groups rushed to fill.
Meanwhile, Washington continues to send foreign aid to Colombia—roughly $1.3 billion since the 2016 peace deal—while the southern border remains porous and American communities absorb the consequences of cartel expansion. Every dollar shipped south competes with the cost of securing the border at home. The Colombian election will shape how aggressively the state confronts the armed groups running the drug trade. But no matter who wins, the supply chains flow north—and the question for Americans is why their government funds the fight abroad while refusing to finish it at the border.
The open question is whether a military crackdown in Bogotá would actually disrupt the cartels' supply lines—or simply reshuffle which armed group controls the route north.
