A US senator from Colombia emerges as a Trump link for Latin America's conservatives

MIAMI (AP) — When Republican Sen. Bernie Moreno visits Colombia this week as part of a three-nation tour of Latin America, it will be something of a homecoming.

Ohio’s first Latino senator, who defeated an incumbent last year with the help of Donald Trump’s endorsement, was born in the Colombian capital of Bogota, and even as he was chasing the American dream, he kept close tabs on the country through older brothers who are heavyweights in politics and business there.

Moreno, 58, has emerged as an interlocutor for conservatives in Latin America seeking to connect with the Trump administration.

In an interview with The Associated Press ahead of the trip, he expressed deep concern about Colombia’s direction under left-wing President Gustavo Petro and suggested that U.S. sanctions, higher tariffs or other retaliatory action might be needed to steer it straight.

The recent criminal conviction of former President Alvaro Uribe, a conservative icon, was an attempt to “silence” the man who saved Colombia from guerrilla violence, Moreno said. Meanwhile, record cocaine production has left the United States less secure — and Colombia vulnerable to being decertified by the White House for failing to cooperate in the war on drugs.

“The purpose of the trip is to understand all the dynamics before any decision is made,” said Moreno, who will meet with both Petro and Uribe, as well as business leaders and local officials. “But there’s nothing that’s taken off the table at this point and there’s nothing that’s directly being contemplated.”

Moreno, a luxury car dealer from Cleveland, defeated incumbent Democrat Sherrod Brown last year with the help of $441 million in political ad spending — the most in U.S. Senate race history. He became Ohio’s senior senator on practically his first day in office after his close friend JD Vance resigned the Senate to become vice president.

In Congress, Moreno has mimicked Trump’s rhetoric to attack top Senate Democrat Chuck Schumer as a “miserable old man out of a Dickens novel,” called on the Federal Reserve to cut interest rates and threatened to subpoena California officials over their response to anti-ICE protests in Los Angeles.

On Latin America, he’s been similarly outspoken, slamming Petro on social media as a “socialist dictator” and accusing Mexico of being on the path to becoming a “narco state.”

He also surprised many hardliners in the GOP early on by suggesting in January that Trump should engage with Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro despite his re-election in what the U.S., European Union and other governments condemned as a rigged vote. While referring to Maduro as a “gang leader” and "terrorist," Moreno nonetheless expressed support for the Trump administration's decision last month to allow energy giant Chevron to resume drilling in Venezuela following a deal with Maduro to free 10 jailed Americans held there.

“What people wanted to hear in January is that we’re going to fly F-16s into Caracas and wage war against the country and that just wasn’t going to happen,” said Moreno in the interview. “If we take actions that are too much in that direction, we end up turning Venezuela over to China.”

Such comments barely register in blue-collar Ohio, but they’ve garnered attention in Latin America. That despite the fact Moreno hasn’t lived in the region for decades and doesn’t sit on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

“He’s somebody to watch,” said Michael Shifter, the former president of the Inter-American Dialogue in Washington. “He’s one of the most loyal Trump supporters in the Senate, and, given his background in Latin America, he could be influential on policy.”

Moreno starts his first congressional delegation to Latin America on Monday for two days of meetings in Mexico City with officials including President Claudia Sheinbaum.

Moreno, in the pre-trip interview, said that Sheinbaum has done more to combat the flow of fentanyl into the U.S. than her predecessor and mentor Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who he described as a “total disaster.” But he said more cooperation is needed, and he’d like to see Mexico allow the DEA to participate in judicial wiretaps like it has for decades in Colombia and allow it to bring back a plane used in bilateral investigations that López Obrador grounded.

“The corruption becomes so pervasive, that if it’s left unchecked, it’s kind of like treating cancer,” said Moreno. “Mexico has to just come to the realization that it does not have the resources to completely wipe out the drug cartels. And it’s only going to be by asking the U.S. for help that we can actually accomplish that.”

From Mexico, Moreno heads to Panama, where he’ll tour the Panama Canal with Trump’s new ambassador to the country, Kevin Marino Cabrera.

In March, a Hong Kong-based conglomerate struck a deal that would have handed control of two ports on either end of the U.S.-built canal to American investment firm BlackRock Inc. The deal was heralded by Trump, who had threatened to take back the canal to curb Chinese influence.

However, the deal has since drawn scrutiny from antitrust authorities in Beijing and last month the seller said it was seeking to add a strategic partner from mainland China — reportedly state-owned shipping company Cosco — to the deal.

“Cosco, you might as well say, is the actual communist party,” said Moreno. “There’s no scenario in which Cosco can be part of the Panamanian ports.”

On the final leg of the tour in Colombia, Moreno will be joined by another Colombian American senator: Ruben Gallego, Democrat of Arizona. In contrast to Moreno, who was born into privilege and counts among his siblings a former ambassador to the U.S., Gallego and his three sisters were raised by an immigrant single mother on a secretary’s paycheck.

Despite their different upbringings, the two have made common cause in seeking to uphold the tradition of bilateral U.S. support for Colombia, for decades Washington’s staunchest ally in the region. It’s a task made harder by deepening polarization in both countries.

The recent sentencing of Uribe to 12 years of house arrest in a long-running witness tampering case has jolted the nation’s politics with nine months to go before decisive presidential elections. The former president is barred from running but remains a powerful leader, and Moreno said his absence from the campaign trail could alter the playing field.

He also worries that surging cocaine production could once again lead to a “narcotization” of a bilateral relationship that should be about trade, investment and mutual prosperity.

“We want Colombia to be strong, we want Colombia to be healthy, we want Colombia to be prosperous and secure, and I think the people of Colombia want the exact same thing,” he added. “So, the question is, how do we get there?”

Smyth reported from Columbus, Ohio.

Ohio Republican Senate candidate Bernie Moreno raises his right fist during a rally for Republican vice presidential candidate Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, in Middletown, Ohio, July 22, 2024. (AP Photo/Paul Vernon, File)

FILE - Supporters of former Colombian President Alvaro Uribe hold cutouts of his face outside the court where he was found guilty of witness tampering and bribery, in Bogota, Colombia, July 28, 2025. (AP Photo/Fernando Vergara, File)

FILE - Colombia's President Gustavo Petro attends a military ceremony in Bogota, Colombia, June 6, 2025. (AP Photo/Ivan Valencia, File)

FILE - Sen. J.D. Vance, center, and Senate candidate Bernie Moreno, right, applaud as Republican presidential candidate and former President Donald Trump speaks at a campaign rally in Vandalia, Ohio, March 16, 2024. (AP Photo/Jeff Dean, File)

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — A South Korean court sentenced former President Yoon Suk Yeol to five years in prison Friday in the first verdict from eight criminal trials over the martial law debacle that forced him out of office and other allegations.

Yoon was impeached, arrested and dismissed as president after his short-lived imposition of martial law in December 2024 triggered huge public protests calling for his ouster.

The most significant criminal charge against him alleges that his martial law enforcement amounted to a rebellion, and the independent counsel has requested the death sentence in the case that is to be decided in a ruling next month.

Yoon has maintained he didn’t intend to place the country under military rule for an extended period, saying his decree was only meant to inform the people about the danger of the liberal-controlled parliament obstructing his agenda. But investigators have viewed Yoon’s decree as an attempt to bolster and prolong his rule, charging him with rebellion, abuse of power and other criminal offenses.

In Friday’s case, the Seoul Central District Court sentenced Yoon for defying attempts to detain him, fabricating the martial law proclamation, and sidestepping a legally mandated full Cabinet meeting and thus depriving some Cabinet members who were not convened of their due rights to deliberate on his decree.

Judge Baek Dae-hyun said in the televised ruling that imposing “a grave punishment” was necessary because Yoon hasn’t shown remorse and has only repeated “hard-to-comprehend excuses.” The judge also restoring legal systems damaged by Yoon’s action was necessary.

Yoon’s defense team said they will appeal the ruling, which they believe was “politicized” and reflected “the unliberal arguments by the independent counsel.” Yoon’s defense team argued the ruling “oversimplified the boundary between the exercise of the president’s constitutional powers and criminal liability.”

Prison sentences in the multiple, smaller trials Yoon faces would matter if he is spared the death penalty or life imprisonment at the rebellion trial.

Park SungBae, a lawyer who specializes in criminal law, said there is little chance the court would decide Yoon should face the death penalty in the rebellion case. He said the court will likely issue a life sentence or a sentence of 30 years or more in prison.

South Korea has maintained a de facto moratorium on executions since 1997 and courts rarely hand down death sentences. Park said the court would take into account that Yoon’s decree didn’t cause casualties and didn’t last long, although Yoon hasn’t shown genuine remorse for his action.

South Korea has a history of pardoning former presidents who were jailed over diverse crimes in the name of promoting national unity. Those pardoned include strongman Chun Doo-hwan, who received the death penalty at a district court over his 1979 coup, the bloody 1980 crackdowns of pro-democracy protests that killed about 200 people, and other crimes.

Some observers say Yoon will likely retain a defiant attitude in the ongoing trials to maintain his support base in the belief that he cannot avoid a lengthy sentence but could be pardoned in the future.

On the night of Dec. 3, 2024, Yoon abruptly declared martial law in a televised speech, saying he would eliminate “anti-state forces” and protect “the constitutional democratic order.” Yoon sent troops and police officers to encircle the National Assembly, but many apparently didn’t aggressively cordon off the area, allowing enough lawmakers to get into an assembly hall to vote down Yoon’s decree.

No major violence occurred, but Yoon's stunt caused the biggest political crisis in South Korea and rattled its diplomacy and financial markets. For many, his decree, the first of its kind in more than four decades in South Korea, brought back harrowing memories of past dictatorships in the 1970s and 1980s, when military-backed leaders used martial law and emergency measures to deploy soldiers and tanks on the streets to suppress demonstrations.

After Yoon's ouster, his liberal rival Lee Jae Myung became president via a snap election last June. After taking office, Lee appointed three independent counsels to look into allegations involving Yoon, his wife and associates.

Yoon's other trials deal with charges like ordering drone flights over North Korea to deliberately inflame animosities to look for a pretext to declare martial law. Other charges accuse Yoon of manipulating the investigation into a marine’s drowning in 2023 and receiving free opinion surveys from an election broker in return for a political favor.

A supporter of former South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol shouts slogans outside Seoul Central District Court, in Seoul, South Korea, Friday, Jan. 16, 2026. (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man)

Supporters of former South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol hold signs and flags outside Seoul Central District Court, in Seoul, South Korea, Friday, Jan. 16, 2026. (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man)

A supporter of former South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol waits for a bus carrying former South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol outside Seoul Central District Court, in Seoul, South Korea, Friday, Jan. 16, 2026. (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man)

Supporters of former South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol hold signs as police officers stand guard outside Seoul Central District Court, in Seoul, South Korea, Friday, Jan. 16, 2026. (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man)

Supporters of former South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol hold signs and flags outside Seoul Central District Court, in Seoul, South Korea, Friday, Jan. 16, 2026. (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man)

Supporters of former South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol hold signs outside Seoul Central District Court, in Seoul, South Korea, Friday, Jan. 16, 2026. (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man)

A picture of former South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol is placed on a board as supporters gather outside Seoul Central District Court, in Seoul, South Korea, Friday, Jan. 16, 2026. (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man)