U.S. Interests
Rationale for American Involvement
Difficult new circumstances face U.S. policy toward Colombia, a country of 39 million people. That policy has focused for almost two decades on joint efforts to destroy drug-trafficking organizations and decrease the flow of cocaine from Colombia, which, according to U.S. Officials, has produced some 75 to 80 percent of the world’s supply. Now, however, Colombians are cultivating new areas with coca leaf, and a multitude of small, independent trafficking organizations has replaced the two major cartels of the 1980s and early 1990s, complicating these efforts. In addition, within the past few years, Colombia’s political and economic stability has been…
