Get ready for Trump’s ‘FAFO’ foreign policy

President Donald Trump posted an AI-picture of a gangster version of himself on Instagram at around 3 p.m. Sunday. Behind the fedora-clad figure, the text “FAFO” — short for “fuck around and find out” — appears alongside a smiling face. 

What happened earlier that Sunday, and the machine-made picture that followed, tells us a lot about how Trump 2.0. will deal with the world. 

After two planes carrying Colombian illegal aliens departed the United States this weekend, self-proclaimed humanist and former guerrilla fighter Gustavo Petro, Colombia’s president, refused to allow the plane to land. “I deny the entry of American planes carrying Colombian migrants into our territory,” Petro said on X. “The United States must establish a protocol for the dignified treatment of migrants before we receive them.”

If Joe Biden was still in the Oval Office, this would’ve likely been the end of the story. What else could we do? It’s their sovereignty after all. In fact, when Venezuelan autocrat Nicolás Maduro did something similar last year, halting repatriation flights due to sanction threats, there was not a response from Biden.

The new Trump team does not seem to want to entertain silly games or take inspirational postures. Instead of finger-wagging or calling for cooperation, Trump issued a threat — a big one.

In his signature style, Trump took to Truth Social and posted a lengthy thread that included emergency 25 percent tariffs on all Colombian goods coming into the US, which would double after a week, and the widespread use of visa sanctions and revocations.

“These measures are just the beginning,” he wrote. “We will not allow the Colombian Government to violate its legal obligations with regard to the acceptance and return of the Criminals they forced into the United States!”

Followers of modern foreign policy orthodoxy looked at this move with indignation. Colombia, even if led by a socialist, is still an ally, and the United States has access to military bases there. Why would we risk making their leader angry? 

There’s at least some logic there, though it overestimates how much feelings play a role. As it is the case with telling NATO members to pay up, threats and demands are useful tools that can be responsibly leveraged. Foreign relations should be in part about finding the most effective way of pushing for the conditions that best serve the US, including pushing “friends.”

If pushing too hard for national interests were the problem, the Chinese Communist Party would not be succeeding internationally — with its prohibitive deals and lofty demands that include pressing dozens of countries to forsake their recognition of Taiwan. (Those who defend the status quo and suggest that Trump’s approach “pushes countries toward China” do not appear to realize that the status quo allowed China to overtake the US as South America’s top trading partner, for instance. Treat their predictions accordingly. )

In an era of great power competition, it is not obsequiously appealing to norms that leads to success. To lead, the US has to push judiciously — with all available tools — for conditions that allow it to achieve tangible goals.

The reality is that while the US imported $16.1 billion worth of Colombian goods in 2023, Colombia ranks twenty-sixth among countries importing to the US. On the other hand, about a third of Colombia’s exports, about 4 percent of its GDP, relies on exporting to the United States — their largest trading partner. 

Ideology and personality matters, but in an increasingly transactional world, money matters more. While one could point at macroeconomic models and statistics to lambast the tariff threat, the mere existence of uncertainty and the trade imbalance made Trump’s threat a superb catalyst for behavioral change. 

Not surprisingly, in less than a day, Gustavo Petro bowed to Trump’s demands, announcing in a statement that Colombia’s presidential plane would help facilitate a “dignified return” for deportees. “The Government of Colombia, under the direction of President Gustavo Petro, has arranged the presidential plane to facilitate the dignified return of compatriots,” read the translated statement.

In his X feed, Petro wrote a dramatic letter to the president, saying among many things, “You can try to carry out a coup with your economic strength and your arrogance, like they did with Allende. But I will die in my law, I resisted torture and I resist you. I don’t want slavers next to Colombia, we already had many and we freed ourselves.” Very poetic from Mr. Petro as usual, who prefers to ignore that returning illegal migrants is standard practice; but then again, why did he budge if he is such a revolutionary? Behind the noise you’ll find the answer: material realities dominate world affairs.