Bogotá.- USA He removed the ambassador to his position in charge of Colombia and VenezuelaFrancisco Palmieri, in the midst of the restructuring of the new administration of the Republican Donald Trumpwhich occurs just after the Impasse diplomatic with the leftist government of Gustavo Petro.
According to unofficial information, revealed by the Colombian environment W RadioPalmieri, who assumed as a business manager Ad interin In Colombia in June 2022 and as head of the US External Office for Venezuela in May 2023, he received the order of return to Washington on Friday, January 24, just before the crisis unleashed this Sunday by the Colombian president, when He refused to receive the US military plane with Colombian deportees that he had previously authorized, according to the Secretary of State, Marco Rubio.
Will retire on February 10
The instruction would have received it from the Bureau’s Office for Affairs of the Western Hemisphere of the Department of States, within the framework of the restructuring carried out by the US President, who had already announced his intention to appoint a new ambassador to Colombia.
The in charge, Francisco Palmieri will retire from Colombia on February 10according to the Colombian media.
The removal of Palmieri, who exercised as an interim undersecretary of the US for affairs of the Western hemisphere between January 2017 and October 2018, would not be the only one that Trump would have approved. According to a “reliable source” consulted by the W Radioat least 12 American diplomats of the Palmieri level worldwide are receiving the order to return to Washington. This, for his alleged “closeness” with the Democratic Administration of Joe Biden (2021-2025).
New ambassador
Although at first, Dan Newlin, lawyer and exdetective based in Orlando, the sources consulted by the Colombian media confirmed that the new business manager and interim ambassador to Colombia in Colombia will be the diplomat John McNamara, current general consul general of the US in Curazao.
McNamara, who had already resided in the Andean country, served as a political counselor of the Washington Embassy in Bogotá during the last two years of the negotiation of the peace agreement between the government of the then president Juan Manuel Santos and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).
Graduated from the West Point Military Academy, McNamara has long diplomatic experience and very good relations with the new Executive Secretary of the State Department, Lisa Kena, who was a right hand when the official served as an ambassador to Peru.
