Trump's Tariff Threats Fit A Growing Global Phenomenon: Hardball Migration Diplomacy

(MENAFN- The Conversation) As diplomatic spats go, it was short-lived.

On Jan 26, 2025, Colombian President Gustavo Petro turned away American military planes carrying people being deported from the United States. In response, U.S. President Donald trump threatened 25% tariffs and travel bans on Colombian government officials. Despite insisting that“the U.S. cannot treat Colombian migrants as criminals” and needed to“establish a protocol for the dignified treatment of migrants before we receive them,” Petro's government backed down and resumed cooperation with U.S. immigration officials.

All this took place in the span of just a few hours. But“migration diplomacy” – the use of diplomatic tools and threats to control the number and flow of migrants – isn't new. Indeed, it was a feature of Trump's first administration. And it is not unique to Trump; it has been in the foreign policy playbook of previous U.S. presidents as well as the European Union and governments around the world.

As an expert on migration policy and international affairs , I have observed the evolution of this global trend, in which nations leverage migration policies for geopolitical ends.

Richer countries with increasingly populist, nationalist bases are putting in place anti-migrant policies. But these same nations depend on poorer countries to accept deportations and host the majority of the world's refugees – governments can't unilaterally“dump” deported immigrants back into the home country, or in a third country.

And while migration diplomacy can be cooperative, there's always the possibility a disagreement will spiral into diplomatic spats or outright conflict.

Migration diplomacy is a relatively recent academic term. But the practice of using foreign policy tools to control migration is centuries old. Common tools of migrant diplomacy fall between the“carrots” of bilateral treaties, development aid and infrastructure investment, and the“sticks” of tariffs, travel bans and sanctions.

Trump, during his first term, focused more on the sticks, frequently threatening tariffs or cuts in aid to push through deals on migration. For example, in 2018, Trump posted on Twitter that if Honduras and other Central American governments did not stop migrant caravans to the U.S., he would cut all aid:“no more money or aid will be given ... effective immediately!”

A few months later, Trump followed through with the threat, suspending US$400 million in aid to Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador.

Trump then upped the ante , posting:“Now we are looking at the 'BAN,' ... Tariffs, Remittance Fees, or all of the above. Guatemala has not been good.”

Within three days, Guatemala signed a deal with the U.S. to cooperate on asylum and deportations. Honduras and El Salvador followed suit two months later.

Similarly, in 2019, Trump threatened Mexico that the U.S. would impose a 5% tariff on goods“until such time as illegal migrants coming through Mexico, and into our Country, STOP.”

Within 11 days, Mexico signed the Migrant Protection Protocols , known as the“Remain in Mexico” policy, institutionalizing what human rights groups called“illegal pushbacks” that put people at risk of torture, sexual violence and death.

Under the Immigration and Nationality Act , the U.S. government can stop granting visas to any country that“denies or unreasonably delays accepting an alien who is a citizen .”

And during his first term, Trump imposed visa restrictions on people from Cambodia, Eritrea, Ghana, Guinea, Laos, Myanmar, Pakistan and Sierra Leone because those countries were deemed to be not cooperating with deportations.

Such visa restrictions worked with Guinea and Ghana, which both began accepting deportations of their citizens from the U.S.

Nations also use migration policy as tools to push other foreign policy goals not necessarily related to migration. As political scientist Kelly Greenhill explored in her book“Weapons of Mass Migration ,” governments are using coercive engineered migration to create pressure against other rival nations. This was seen in 2021 when Belarus bused asylum seekers to the Polish border in an apparent effort to overwhelm the EU's asylum system.

Similarly, Trump used migration policies to bully other nations into cooperating with the United States. The“Muslim ban” of his first administration – rebranded in later iterations as travel bans – banned entry of citizens from Chad, Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen. While the first executive order pertaining to the ban was immediately criticized as Islamophobic , the administration changed legal reasoning in front of the Supreme Court, arguing that the ban stemmed from nations not sharing information about potential terrorists and due to their passports being vulnerable to fraud.

The travel bans were an attempt to coerce nations into sharing information with the U.S. and enforcing U.S. standards of identity documents. Indeed, Chad was later removed from the ban when it adopted these standards.

The use of migration diplomacy by the U.S. government predates Trump. Tit-for-tat restrictions on travel were common throughout the Cold War . In 2001, President George W. Bush applied visa sanctions to Guyana when its government refused to cooperate on deportations. In 2016, President Barack Obama also applied retaliatory visa restrictions on Gambia for failing to accept U.S. deportation flights.

The European Union tends to use carrots rather than sticks to encourage cooperation on deportations. For example, a 2016 EU-Turkey deal provided 6 billion euros (US$6.25 million) in aid for refugees in Turkey in exchange for accepting the deportation of what the EU describes as“irregular migrants.” In 2023, the EU also struck a 105 million euro ($109 million) deal with Tunisia in return for the North African country's cooperation on preventing irregular migration.

But like Trump, the EU is not opposed to punishing states for refusing to cooperate on deportations. In April 2024, the EU tightened rules on visas for Ethiopians because their government refused to accept the return of citizens who had asylum claims denied. Earlier, the EU suspended 15 million euros ($15.6 million) in development aid to Ethiopia on similar grounds.

Trump's threats and EU migration deals reveal a type of migration interdependence: Rich states in the Global North don't want to host large numbers of migrants and refugees and need willing partners in the Global South to accept deportations, enforce emigration restrictions and continue hosting the majority of the world's refugees .

This interdependence is typically balanced by rich countries footing the bill and poor countries accepting deportations. But migration diplomacy is also used by less powerful nations aware of the opportunity of exacting concessions out of countries, blocs or international bodies. For example, the Kenyan government repeatedly threatened to close the Dadaab refugee camp and expel all Somali refugees unless it received more international aid. Similarly, Pakistan threatened to deport Afghan refugees unless the international community did more, but backed down after significant increases in aid.

Rwanda extracted around $310 million from the British government without resettling a single person after a 2022 plan aimed at deterring asylum seekers to the U.K. by deporting them to Rwanda – where their cases would be reviewed and eventually settled – was blocked by the European Court of Human Rights and the U.K.'s Supreme Court .

Similarly, the small South Pacific island nation of Nauru was paid more than with the aim of hosting all asylum seekers to Australia. The policy broke down after in Nauru's detention facilities.

While migration diplomacy does work both ways, richer countries by and large have the upper hand. And Trump's threats against Colombia – and others – are just one example of this hardball migration diplomacy.

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