Symbolic imageColombia asks Trump to suspend tariffs as quake toll climbs
Six days after Colombia's magnitude 7.4 earthquake, official counts put the dead at 288 to 294. New president Abelardo de la Espriella asked Donald Trump to suspend US tariffs on Colombian goods.
De la Espriella asked Trump on Saturday to consider temporarily suspending the tariffs on Colombian products, in a ten-minute call he described as friendly and cordial. Washington raised the duties from 10 to 12.5 percent on 24 July, exempting coffee and oil; the US is Colombia's biggest export market. Reconstruction is costed at about $6.4bn, and finance minister Miguel Gomez said tax rises are not yet under consideration.
Toll rises, rescued woman dies
The disaster agency UNGRD said on Friday that 288 people had died, 202 were missing and 145,601 were affected; AFP reported 294 dead and at least 320 missing. A woman freed in Pereira on Tuesday, 11 August, after nearly 37 hours under rubble died in hospital on Friday night.
Aid sorted by alignment
Bogotá officially requested rescue teams only from the United States, El Salvador, Ecuador and Israel, citing certification rules; the political scientist Sandra Borda wrote on X that far more states hold UN-certified units and that the choice showed deep mistrust of parts of the international community (FAZ). Paraguay announced on Saturday 50 tonnes of medicines and food for Medellín.
Other opinions
Venezuela's state-funded Telesur foregrounds criticism of the aid limits and Chocó's neglect; Global Times ran only Xinhua photographs.