The relationship between Colombia and the United States evolved from a mutual cordiality during the 19th and early 20th centuries[1] to an early-2000s partnership that linked the governments of both nations around several key issues; this includes fighting communism, the War on Drugs, and the threat of terrorism due to the September 11 attacks in 2001.

[9] Upon the death of Osama bin Laden, Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos congratulated Obama, stating in a press release that the raid "proves once again that terrorists, sooner or later, always fall.

President Juan Manuel Santos stated, "In June, NATO will sign an agreement with the Colombian government, with the Defense Ministry, to start the process of rapprochement and cooperation, with an eye toward also joining that organization.

"[11] In response, then US assistant secretary of state Roberta Jacobson noted, "Our goal is certainly to support Colombia as being a capable and strong member of lots of different international organizations, and that might well include NATO.

[Note 1] A populist Colombian congressman, Jorge Eliécer Gaitán, began to develop a nationwide reputation, especially among the poor, after visiting the site of the United Fruit massacre the same week.

[30] Stokes and other critics believed that the U.S. government focused on the destruction of the FARC and other left-wing guerrilla movements, ignoring and even supporting other destabilizing elements in Colombian society.

As La Violencia was ending a "U.S. Special Survey Team" composed of worldwide counterinsurgency experts arrived in October 1959 to investigate Colombia's internal security.

Among other policy recommendations the U.S. team advised that "in order to shield the interests of both Colombian and U.S. authorities against 'interventionist' charges any special aid given for internal security was to be sterile and covert in nature.

[35] In a secret supplement to his report to the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Yarborough encouraged a stay-behind irregular force and its immediate deployment to eliminate communists representing a future threat: "A concerted country team effort should be made now to select civilian and military personnel for clandestine training in resistance operations in case they are needed later.

This structure should be used to pressure toward reforms known to be needed, perform counter-agent and counter-propaganda functions and as necessary execute paramilitary, sabotage and/or terrorist activities against known communist proponents.

This organization was to undertake 'clandestine execution of plans developed by the United States Government toward defined objectives in the political, economic, and military fields'...it would…undertake...'paramilitary, sabotage, and/or terrorist activities against known communist proponents'.

Doug Stokes argues that it was not until the early part of the 1980s that the Colombian government attempted to move away from the policy of counterinsurgency warfare represented by Plan LAZO and Yarborough's 1962 recommendations.

"[43] Targets for Counter intelligence operations included, "ordinary citizens who are typical members of organizations or associations which play an important role in the local society.

"[44] The manual explains that the indicators of communist/insurgent infiltration include: Author Doug Stokes claims that there is a major discrepancy between the U.S. "stated goals of US policy and the actual targets and effects" of the war on drugs in Colombia, arguing that U.S. military assistance has been primarily directed at fighting the FARC and ELN guerrillas despite the fact that past CIA and DEA reports have identified the insurgents as minor players in the drug trade.

With the help of the US Delta Force, extensive training, equipment and financial support, the defeat of Pablo Escobar and the Medellin Cartel marked an important moment for both the US and Colombia.

[65] Author Doug Stokes has criticized this, stating that "in the aftermath of September 11th the U.S. has dropped the pretence that its military assistance has been driven solely by counter-narcotics concerns and has now started to overtly couch its funding in terms of a strategy of counter-terrorism targeted at the FARC, who are now being linked to international terrorism as well as drug trafficking.

[67] In November 2002, as part of what has been called "a significant shift in American policy", the U.S. began sending advisors to Colombia under a $94 million counterinsurgency program to protect five hundred miles of an oil pipeline.

[69] In 2006, a U.S. congressional report listed a number of PMCs and other enterprises that have signed contracts to carry out anti-narcotics operations and related activities as part of Plan Colombia.

The manuals were also distributed by Special Forces Mobile Training teams to military personnel and intelligence schools in Colombia, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, and Peru.

[82] In 2003, The Guardian's columnist George Monbiot stated that "over the past 10 years, the paramilitaries [which the Colombian army] works with have killed some 15,000 trades unionists, peasant and indigenous leaders, human rights workers, land reform activists, leftwing politicians and their sympathizers.

For HRW, the resulting situation allowed the Colombian government and military to plausibly deny links or responsibility for human rights abuses committed by members or associates of these networks.

Despite some prosecutions and convictions, the authorities rarely brought officers of the security forces and the police charged with human rights offenses to justice, and impunity remains a problem.

"[92] In 1997, Amnesty International (AI) opined that the war on drugs is "a myth", stating that members of Colombian security forces worked closely with paramilitaries, landlords and narco-traffickers to target political opposition, community leaders, human rights and health workers, union activists, students, and peasants.

[97] On March 1, 2018, the United States and Colombia decided to continue their partnership that works to better develop and facilitate both countries economies with new opportunities, environmental protection, and efforts to decrease the trade of narcotics.

Lastly, it deals with the exchange of narcotics with the agreement to strengthen efforts to eliminate the drug trade by putting in place new restrictions and barriers that will hopefully decrease the cocaine and coca cultivation by 50 in five years.

[99] According to Reuters, a U.S. official said military planes had not been used to fly migrants out of the country in recent memory, and the Associated Press reported that Colombia had "accepted 475 deportation flights from the U.S. from 2020 to 2024" on civilian aircraft.

[105] Per NBC, Luis Gilberto Murillo, Colombia's Foreign Affairs Minister, "said in remarks delivered in Spanish that the country 'will continue to receive Colombians deported, guaranteeing them dignified conditions as citizens subject to rights.

'"[99][needs update] According to author Robin Kirk, most Americans in 2003 remained naïve about the role of the United States in Colombia's historical development and the nation's continuing violence.

[106] Colombia's own history has been studied from the perspective of the so-called "violentologist", a new type of social scientist created in order to analyze the nature and development of the country's violence.

[107] In 1999, Camilo Azcarate has attributed the violence to three main causes: Doug Stokes argued in 2005 that, along with the other factors, the past and present interference of successive American administrations in Colombian affairs had often sought to preserve a measure of stability in Colombia, by upholding a political and economic status quo understood as favorable to U.S. interests even at the cost of contributing to promoting greater instability for the majority of the Colombian population.