De la Espriella sworn in as Colombia's president in Cali

New president pledges military confrontation with armed groups

BOGOTÁ, Colombia — Abelardo de la Espriella was sworn in Friday as Colombia’s president in the southwestern city of Cali, where authorities deployed some 11,000 troops to guard the ceremony against protests and potential attacks by armed groups. The 48-year-old former criminal defense lawyer, who has never held elected office, broke with tradition by holding his inauguration in Cali rather than the capital, Bogotá, choosing a city that has been hit hard by drug violence and attacks from rebel groups. The ceremony took place at the arena of Santiago de Cali University, with roughly a dozen heads of state attending, including Argentina’s Javier Milei, Ecuador’s Daniel Noboa, Chile’s José Antonio Kast, U.S. Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, FIFA President Gianni Infantino and King Felipe VI of Spain. Drones were banned, and privately owned vehicles were not allowed on city roads on Inauguration Day.

In a speech earlier this week, de la Espriella said one of the fundamental priorities of his government would be to “exert control of our territory.” “If we don’t control our cities and our rural areas, this nation will lose its sovereignty,” he said. He has promised to confront rebel groups with greater military force while cutting government spending to reduce a budget deficit that doubled under Petro.

Over the past four years, drug gangs and rebel groups linked to decades of political conflict in Colombia have become increasingly powerful in rural areas, where they extort local businesses and profit from activities such as illegal mining and the drug trade. Petro attempted to negotiate peace agreements with many of these groups under a strategy known as “Total Peace,” but critics said the strategy failed, with some armed groups using ceasefires granted by the government to rearm, regroup and expand their control over rural communities.

De la Espriella has said he will end peace talks with Colombia’s rebel groups and confront them with greater military force. He supports building large prisons and using aerial spraying and drones to destroy illegal coca crops, a practice Colombia halted more than a decade ago because of environmental concerns. He has said “any criminal who does not surrender will be taken down,” and he said he will give armed groups a strict 30-day deadline to surrender to authorities under the rule of law, warning that there will be no generous concessions. He also plans to create a “defense bloc” by decree, deploying specialized police units to combat urban crimes such as extortion and homicide, and to resume airstrikes against camps operated by groups involved in drug trafficking and terrorism through military and intelligence cooperation agreements with the United States and Israel. Retired Maj. Gen. Jorge Eduardo Mora, de la Espriella’s designated defense minister, will be tasked with restoring the offensive capabilities of Colombia’s security forces.

The expansion of armed groups has been steep. According to a report by the Ideas for Peace Foundation, organized crime groups in Colombia expanded their ranks by nearly 90% during the outgoing administration, reaching a combined 28,802 members in July 2026, growth driven in part by the rise of the Gulf Clan. Illegal armed groups grew by 23.5% over the past year and now have more than 28,000 armed members operating across 700 of Colombia’s 1,101 municipalities, the foundation found. It criticized cease-fires implemented under Petro’s “Total Peace” plan for failing to include verifiable disarmament commitments or geographic restrictions, allowing groups such as the Gulf Clan, the National Liberation Army, or ELN, and dissident factions of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, to expand into new territories without resistance from security forces and to come into direct conflict with one another.

Elizabeth Dickinson, a Colombia analyst at the International Crisis Group, said that with de la Espriella, “the pendulum swings back to the right” after four years of a left-leaning administration that struggled to achieve results in negotiations with armed groups. She said increased military pressure could help weaken rebel groups and encourage some fighters to demobilize, while completely ending the possibility of future talks could be counterproductive. “We’re talking about a conflict that has an estimated 27,000 individuals involved in different armed and criminal groups,” Dickinson said. “These individuals will need a route back into normal life.”

De la Espriella won the presidential election by about 250,000 votes, defeating Sen. Iván Cepeda by roughly one percentage point out of more than 26 million cast. He is the latest of several leaders elected in Latin America as voters increasingly focus on crime and security concerns; recent contests in Peru, Chile and Ecuador have produced leaders who have sought closer alignment with the Trump administration on issues such as immigration and anti-drug policies.

De la Espriella, who leads the Defenders of the Homeland movement, has expressed support for the Trump administration’s campaign of military strikes against vessels suspected of carrying drugs in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific, in which more than 200 people have been killed. He is also expected to speed up the extradition of rebel leaders wanted in the United States on drug charges, and he has begun aligning Colombia’s foreign policy with Washington by cutting diplomatic ties with Cuba and Nicaragua and restoring relations with Israel. He has confirmed plans to close 14 Colombian embassies in Europe, Africa and the Caribbean and to withdraw from multilateral initiatives such as China’s Belt and Road Initiative. Domestically, de la Espriella has said he wants to cut government spending by as much as 40% to reduce the growing budget deficit, and he has announced incentives for the private sector and a restructuring of the country’s troubled public healthcare system.

Upon arriving in Cali on Thursday to lead the White House delegation, Blanche described the transition as a historic political shift. “We are honored and privileged to be here in Cali, Colombia, and we are excited for the Colombian people and for what will happen tomorrow,” Blanche said. “We are also excited about what we hope will be the beginning of a great period of renewed relations and a strong partnership between the United States and Colombia.”

De la Espriella will have to build a majority in Colombia’s fragmented Congress if he wants to push through deeper reforms, said Sergio Guzmán, a political analyst in Bogotá. He also faces opposition from Petro, who has refused to acknowledge the election result and claimed, without providing credible evidence, that the vote count was rigged. Guzmán said the fraud allegations could fuel protests against de la Espriella’s government among Colombians who are already concerned that his anti-crime policies could lead to human rights abuses by security forces. “Petro is going to be a constant nuisance for De la Espriella,” Guzmán said. “But I think De la Espriella is ready for a fight with Petro, both rhetorically and potentially on the streets.”