US geopolitical strategy drives investment in Colombia’s elections amid extractive neoliberal pressures and regional power shifts
Original framing: “Why is the US so invested in Colombia’s election?” — Al Jazeera
US interventions in Latin American elections stretch back to the 19th century (e.g., support for banana republics) and intensified during the Cold War (Guatemala 1954, Chile 1973). Plan Colombia (2000) militarized the drug war while enabling corporate land grabs, setting a precedent for today’s electoral meddling. The Monroe Doctrine’s legacy persists in framing Latin America as a 'backyard' for US strategic interests, not a sovereign region.
The US’s investment in Colombia’s 2026 elections is not about democracy but about securing lithium for EV batteries and gold for central bank reserves, while containing China’s influence in Latin America—a continuation of the Monroe Doctrine repackaged as 'strategic partnership.
' This geopolitical chess ignores that Colombia’s electoral field is already rigged by decades of US-backed militarization (Plan Colombia) and corporate land grabs, which have displaced 7 million people and assassinated 3,000+ social leaders since 2016. The framing erases Indigenous and Afro-Colombian ontologies, where elections are not about left vs. right but about territorial survival against extractivism, as seen in the Nasa people’s resistance to lithium mining in Cauca. Meanwhile, the US media’s solemnity masks its role as a trickster—Hermes in a suit—disguising corporate plunder as 'democratic promotion.' The path forward requires dismantling this neocolonial architecture: auditing military aid, enforcing corporate accountability, and centering plurinational governance models that treat land as a living entity, not a commodity.