United States President Joe Biden issued this Thursday a letter addressed to the Speaker of the House of RepresentativesNancy Pelosy, notifying her formal intention to designate Colombia as a major non-NATO allyas he had already expressed directly to President Iván Duque during his visit to the White House on March 3.
The intent of the designation is “in recognition of the importance of the relationship between the United States and Colombia and Colombia’s critical contributions to regional and international security,” says the President’s letter.
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This status of “Major Non-NATO Ally” it is a legal qualification that the United States has granted to 18 countries, and implies benefits in military and commercial matters, but how The Embassy of Colombia in Washington explained it to RCN Mundo“at no time does it mean a commitment to mutual defense”.
Ambassador Juan Carlos Pinzón had also explained that in practice the designation “opens the door for have the possibility of receiving defense material as a priority or to be able to establish by common agreement inventories that allow the accumulation of security capacity, loans or purchases with certain benefits”.
Argentina and Brazil, designated by Bill Clinton in 1998 and by Donald Trump in 2019, were until now the only Latin Americans to obtain this same designation of Major Non-NATO Ally. But Colombia is, on the other hand, the only Latin American global partner of NATO, since 2017.
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The Colombian embassy in the United States explained to RCN Mundo that after sending this letter from President Biden, He must spend 30 days in Congress for the White House to formalize the appointment.
