Last updated: September 18, 2026 · The Brief is reviewed and improved in place; the Media Monitor and Social Media Monitor below are rebuilt every morning
Where things stand. Colombia is five weeks into a new government and one month into recovery from a major earthquake. Abelardo de la Espriella took the oath of office in Cali on 7 August 2026, having won the 21 June runoff narrowly. Three days after the inauguration, a magnitude 7.4 earthquake struck southeast of San José del Palmar, Chocó, at 108 km depth; the national disaster agency counted 331 dead and 4,439 injured. The new government has moved fast on two fronts at once: it has dismantled the negotiated-peace architecture it inherited, and it has deepened the security and resources relationship with Washington, signing memoranda on critical minerals and civil nuclear cooperation with Secretary of State Marco Rubio in Barranquilla on 8 September. Congress, which the government does not control, is the constraint on both.
The negotiating tables are closed. Resolutions 390 and 391 of 2026, issued 9 September, revoked the designated delegations for talks with the ELN and with the Ejército Gaitanista de Colombia; earlier decisions had already terminated the tables with the EMBF, the Coordinadora Nacional Ejército Bolivariano and the ACSN. On 13 September the Attorney General's office reactivated three suspended capture orders against Clan del Golfo commanders. The underlying numbers cut both ways. UNODC measured 261,000 hectares of coca at the end of 2024, up 3.5% year on year, with the Pacific region up 14% and Catatumbo up 11%; cocaine seizures rose 19% to 889,201 kg while forced manual eradication fell 54% to 9,403 hectares. Indepaz, counting independently, recorded 89 massacres and 336 victims to 11 September 2026, against 78 and 256 for all of 2025.
Congress is fragmented and the president does not command it. In the 8 March legislative elections the Pacto Histórico took the largest Senate bloc at 25 seats, ahead of Centro Democrático with 17; allocations below the top two are reported inconsistently and should be treated as contested. When Congress installed on 20 July, Honorio Henríquez of Centro Democrático won the Senate presidency 56 to 45, with Pacto Histórico votes deciding it against the incoming government's preference — an early signal that floor arithmetic, not the presidency, sets the agenda. Institutional friction is now routine: on 14 September the Supreme Court's Special Instruction Chamber opened a preliminary inquiry into the financing of Iván Cepeda's October 2025 primary campaign, after the National Electoral Council had cleared the same contributions in January. Two state bodies, two working positions, no final ruling.
Growth has accelerated while inflation has moved the wrong way. The statistics agency recorded GDP growth of 3.5% year on year in the second quarter and 2.9% for the first half; annual inflation reached 6.24% in August, against 5.10% a year earlier. Banco de la República holds its policy rate at 12.0%, in force since 1 July after a four-to-three vote to hold on 31 July, and meets again on 30 September. Unemployment was 8.1% in July. Oil output fell 2.46% year on year in July to 727,920 barrels a day and gas fell 8.36%, while exports rose 5.9% in July with fuels and extractives at 40.0% of the total. Two external pressures sit on top of that: a 12.5% US Section 301 tariff on Colombian goods ordered 23 July over forced-labour enforcement, and a current account deficit running at 3.5% of quarterly GDP, cushioned by US$4,131 million in remittances.
The 2027 budget: Congress's joint economic committees approved the 634.9 trillion-peso total on 14 September and must approve the bill by 20 October, against an independent fiscal committee projecting a primary deficit of 4.5% of GDP, a total deficit near 10% and net debt near 67.3%. The US Presidential Determination on major drug transit countries for fiscal 2027, which had not appeared as of 14 September — last year's designated Colombia as having failed demonstrably while granting a national-interest waiver. The aerial spraying pilot authorised on 18 August: seven days, 1,000 hectares, glufosinate ammonium rather than glyphosate, with technical reports due within 60 days, and environmental licensing and prior consultation with ethnic communities still required before anything wider. Banco de la República's 30 September rate decision. And El Niño through the 2026–27 season, which the fiscal committee flags as a risk to reduced energy and gas subsidy funding.
A working list of the outlets Corridor Intelligence checks on Colombia every morning, split by language and by international versus national vantage point, followed by today's cross-source snapshot of what those outlets were actually reporting.
Accounts worth checking directly, chosen for institutional standing or ground-level access rather than follower count. Each handle below was verified against the institution's own website. Corridor Intelligence does not treat any single post as confirmed fact; each is a lead to check against the Media Monitor above.
This Colombia watch is compiled from primary official statements, institutional research and direct outlet monitoring, cross-checked across English, Spanish and French, international and national sources. The Brief is corrected and improved in place as the picture changes. The Media Monitor and Social Media Monitor panels above are rebuilt each morning from the outlets and accounts listed, not archived as separate daily posts — this page is always the current state, not a dated snapshot.
It sits within Latin America — Regional Watch. — See all Issues Focus segments