During the end of the Clinton Administration, the United States signed an agreement called “Plan Colombia” to help Colombia reclaim land from insurgency groups and reduce the production of cocaine coming out of Colombia.

The problem is that Plan Colombia has ultimately been a failure, and has been a drain on the United States. Drug production in South America has mostly remained the same, and violence in the area has had its ups and downs. But overall, Colombia has still been ravaged by civil war and Plan Colombia has done nothing to remedy this.

Proponents of Plan Colombia will point to the recently signed FARC peace deal, which technically will end the civil war within Colombia. The issue is that the peace deal was signed in spite of Plan Colombia, not because of it. Plan Colombia has fostered warfare in Colombia by funding and training the Colombian military, while also propping up paramilitary forces that terrorize the Colombian people. The FARC were on the brink of peace in the early 2000s, but when the United States started fighting fire with fire, the conflict only grew to record levels.

On top of exacerbating violence within South America, drug production has also been shuffled around. Near Plan Colombia’s implementation, drug production shot up in Peru and Bolivia due to what analysts call the “balloon effect.” As it becomes harder to grow drugs in Colombia, drug producers simply move to surrounding areas, which doesn’t really solve anything. Even in recent years, cocaine production in Colombia is expanding at record rates. Plan Colombia has absolutely failed at curtailing drug production.

Paramilitary groups, essentially violent militia groups with varying goals, have been funded directly by Plan Colombia under the guise of “alternative crop programs”. Essentially Plan Colombia aims to subsidize programs to help farmers transition away from cocaine, but the money just goes to groups that use the money to terrorize farmers. Paramilitaries pretend to be valid “palm companies” but instead they use United States funds to steal land from small farmers. 52,000 acres have been stolen from farmers in Colombia as a result of this.

The United States foreign policy in the United States has been an abject failure and must be discontinued for the good of the Colombian people.