U.S. Suspends Colombia Drug Crop Survey Program as Coca Output Rises

BOGOTA, Colombia—The Biden administration has suspended an annual survey of Colombia’s booming drug crop, halting a satellite monitoring program that has long been an important tool for U.S. counternarcotics efforts in the region. 

The suspension of data collection on the cultivation of coca—the plant used to make cocaine—is temporary, a State Department spokesperson said, without providing further details. 

“We are constantly assessing the effectiveness of various counternarcotics efforts and make changes to our efforts as needed,” the statement said in a statement, adding “We continue to work with the government of Colombia on the monitoring of illicit coca crops.”

The survey conducted by the White House’s Office of National Drug Control Policy, which measures the area of land used for coca crops and estimates potential cocaine production in Colombia, Peru and Bolivia, had for decades been an important reference for bilateral relations and drug policy makers, said Kevin Whitaker, a former U.S. ambassador to Colombia. 

The U.S. estimated Colombia’s drug crop at 578,000 acres in 2021 with potential to produce 972 metric tons of cocaine, a slight drop from the previous year, which had been an all-time high. By comparison, the U.S. had reported 205,000 cultivated acres and 273 tons of potential cocaine in 2011.

“To suspend the program that provided good information is a little hard for me to understand,” said Whitaker. “Its durability and consistent methodology gives it a reliability that’s undeniable. I’m a little puzzled by the decision.” 

The U.S.’s move, earlier reported by Colombian newspaper El Tiempo, drew swift rebuke from some Republican lawmakers in Florida who have been critical of Colombian President Gustavo Petro’s efforts to upend the country’s fight against coca as well as the crime syndicates that profit from it. 

Since taking office a year ago, Petro has said he wants to end the U.S.-backed drug war, which he has called a failure for stoking violence and poverty. The president, once a member of a leftist guerrilla group, has also embarked on initiatives to wean poor farmers off drug crops and court criminal armed groups into negotiations. Those efforts veer from the forced manual eradication and aerial fumigation of coca by military planes, which authorities had long relied on to fight the illicit trade. 

Rep. María Elvira Salazar

“Taking fentanyl seriously doesn’t mean that the fight against cocaine stops,” she said. 

The State Department said, “Disrupting cocaine trafficking continues to be a high priority as we also focus on disrupting fentanyl trafficking.”

Colombian authorities played down the impact of the U.S.’s program suspension because the country has other monitoring programs. One is conducted by Colombia’s national police and another is managed by the United Nations, which includes satellite imagery as well as on-the-ground field surveillance. 

While the U.S. coca crop estimates have been larger than those of the U.N. in recent years, both data sets have shown similar trends in the rise of coca in far-flung corners of Colombia’s countryside, including territories controlled by armed rebel groups. 

Justice Minister Nestor Osuna said his government didn’t expect to receive a drug report from the U.S. this year and said he didn’t know if and when it would resume, calling it an internal decision by the U.S. 

The new policy won’t affect antidrug collaboration between both sides, Osuna told reporters this week after attending an event with activists and farmers, where helping coca growers transition to legal crops and incorporating them into the formal economy was a main point of discussion.

“U.S.-Colombia relations in this area are absolutely fluid, we don’t have any problems there. We’re in a good moment,” said Osuna. 

Colombian law enforcement is also working with the U.S. on taming the expansion of fentanyl abuse, National Police Director William Salamanca said.

Write to Kejal Vyas at [email protected]