On July 17, 2025, Colombia and Venezuela signed what they hailed as a “historic” memorandum to create a “binational zone of peace, unity, and development” across one of Latin America’s most volatile borders. But what the Petro government in Bogotá has framed as a diplomatic breakthrough, critics see as something else entirely: a geopolitical concession to a narco-authoritarian regime that is rapidly consolidating power, both at home and abroad.
The agreement, still unpublished in full, involves the integration of three Colombian departments – Norte de Santander, Cesar, and La Guajira – into a new governance framework alongside the Venezuelan states of Táchira and Zulia. These are not peripheral jurisdictions. They are the frontlines of regional instability: corridors of guerrilla warfare, drug trafficking, mass migration, and asymmetric economic collapse. Maduro has further hinted that Colombia’s three departments are just the beginning of a larger integration, mentioning future binational zones in Apure–Arauca and shared Orinoco region.
More alarming than the “memorandum” itself, is the context in which Petro and Maduro appear to have cemented their ideological partnership – just a year after the Venezuelan leader brazenly stole Venezuela’s 2024 presidential election from opposition candidate Edmundo González. As Maduro’s henchmen continue to arbitrarily detain opposition leaders, Washington appears to have turned its back on restoring democracy to the oil-rich nation, and has slashed aid to Colombia in a move that anticipates a “decertification” of the country in terms of coca eradication and counter-narcotics efforts. Meanwhile, with the ambivalence of the international community toward Maduro, Colombia’s Gustavo Petro has extended the red carpet to an autocrat.
The newly announced binational zone raises urgent questions: Is Colombia strengthening ties with a neighbor – or offering legitimacy to a dictator in exchange for vague promises of peace?
Maduro’s characterization of the deal is expansive. Speaking on his television show Con Maduro +, the Venezuelan leader declared that not just municipalities but “entire states” on both sides of the border would be integrated into the new zone. In his words, it will be a “zone of commercial integration, investments, industrial and agricultural development,” with shared security coordination and cultural fusion. “From a military and police perspective, we will liberate this zone from drug traffickers, paramilitaries, and all kinds of violence,” he said.
But Maduro’s declarations carry a bitter irony. The Venezuelan regime has long been accused of harboring the very armed groups it now claims it will combat. The ELN guerrilla – Colombia’s last insurgency – has operated with impunity from safe havens across the Venezuelan border for decades. Its leaders, including alias Iván Márquez of the Second Marquetalia FARC dissidents, are living either in the Venezuelan capital, Caracas, or near the Colombian border, in the provinces of Táchira and Apure, receiving protection from the Bolivarian Armed Forces.
By establishing a “binational security zone,” the Petro administration has validated the Venezuelan state’s role as a safe harbor for criminal armed groups who use Venezuelan soil to target vulnerable Colombian civilians and security forces operating in the Catatumbo and Perijá mountain ranges.
“This is an unacceptable agreement with a tyranny,” said former Colombian President Álvaro Uribe. “There is no peace to be built with those who protect narcoterrorist networks.” Uribe called on future governments to revoke the initiative on day one, warning that it amounts to “a step forward in delivering Colombia to international criminality and its protectors.”
Even beyond the guerrilla question, the power imbalance is stark. While Colombia remains a flawed but functioning democracy, Venezuela has become a mafia state—a government hollowed out and co-opted by military elites, drug trafficking interests, and foreign patrons. China, Russia, and Iran have all deepened ties with Caracas, offering financial and military support.
And Washington? It has largely disengaged. After a failed push to support Venezuela’s democratic opposition in 2019-2020, and a brief flirtation with easing sanctions in 2023, the Biden administration retreated into cautious ambivalence. Even after the farcical 2024 election, the State Department offered little more than disappointment. The void left by U.S. inaction is now being filled by regional strongmen and leftist populists with their own agendas.
That agenda is clear in the new binational zone. According to the memorandum’s outlines, the zone will coordinate infrastructure projects, trade regulations, social development, and energy systems. But the devil is in the enforcement – or lack thereof. Who monitors the movement of goods or the transit of armed actors? Which military will settle disputes? Who holds Maduro’s Bolivarian Guard accountable if they establish checkpoints along the La Guajira peninsula or reach the outskirts of Valledupar, in César?
Petro may genuinely believe that development and integration are key to solving Colombia’s 1,800-km long border. In speeches, he often invokes the language of a united “Gran Colombia”, of Liberator Simón Bolívar, and call for Latin America free from U.S. interference. But the reality is that no amount of populism can erase the basic facts: Venezuela is not a reliable partner. It is a rogue regime – one that has bankrupted its own state, silences dissent, and transit hub for everything from cocaine to weapons to gold smuggling.
The binational zone might succeed in bringing short-term infrastructure investment or improving cross-border health services. But if it enables deeper Venezuelan influence over Colombian territory, or allows criminal actors to operate under a façade of state coordination, it could prove catastrophic – not just for Colombia’s borders, but for its national sovereignty.
In the end, Colombia must ask itself: Are we solving the border crisis – or surrendering to it?
