Will right-wing Latin American leaders like De la Espriella help Trump keep Florida Hispanics?
By Tim Padgett
August 6, 2026 at 6:00 AM EDT
On Friday, Abelardo de la Espriella will be sworn in as President of Colombia — and as the new political darling of Florida, one who helps President Donald Trump and the Republican Party retain Hispanic voters who might otherwise feel tempted to disown both these days.
De la Espriella, a controversial, "iron fist" right-wing populist, did not get a majority of votes in Colombia's June presidential runoff election. He defeated leftist Sen. Iván Cepeda by less than a percentage point.
In fact, De la Espriella — who holds dual Colombian-U.S. citizenship and has a home here in Pinecrest — may be more popular in Florida than he is in Colombia.
And so in this U.S. midterm election season, more and more Florida Republican politicians want voters to know:
They love Abelardo de la Espriella.
Florida gubernatorial candidate James Fishback — a young, right-wing investment executive from Davie who in recent months has gained some ground on the GOP primary front-runner, Congressman Byron Donalds, ahead of the Aug. 18 election — frequently praises De la Espriella at his campaign events.
By electing De la Espriella, Fishback said at a recent gathering in Fort Lauderdale, "Colombia stood up and rejected the tyranny of the left!"
Fishback — whose mother is Colombian, part of a South Florida expat community that cast more than 90% of its votes for De la Espriella this summer — acknowledges that it's part of his strategy.
“To see a Colombian leader rise up on free-market, rule of law principles, on a grassroots movement that’s not shy about their Christian faith — that’s very inspiring for me and the vital Hispanic community in this state," Fishback told WLRN.
"And the same success that Mr. De la Espriella had in Latin America we will have here on Aug 18.”
Expat Colombians rally for right-wing presidential candidate Abelardo De la Espriella outside the Colombian consulate in Coral Gables on May 31, 2026, as they cast votes in the first round of Colombia's presidential election. (1200x847, AR: 1.4167650531286895)
Polls indicate that's a long shot (especially as Fishback faces accusations of racist, anti-Semitic and misogynist campaign rhetoric, which he denies, and since it turns out his running mate is under criminal investigation in Broward County). Even so, Florida Republicans who stand stronger chances of winning on Aug. 18 are also on the De la Espriella bandwagon.
Ashley Moody, the U.S. Senator who’s up for re-election, made a point recently of sitting down with the Colombian news network NTN24 to laud De la Espriella herself.
The Colombian "won a very hard-fought victory for freedom and democracy," Moody said. "Those are things our large Hispanic population here in Florida teaches us are not to be complacent about."
Not to be outdone, Republican Miami Congresswoman María Elvira Salazar reminds folks on social media that De la Espriella is "a personal friend" who has lived in her 27th District.
Meanwhile, South Florida’s most prominent GOP politico, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, is expected to attend De la Espriella’s inauguration.
READ MORE: Did Colombia's presidential front-runner help hook up a Colombian criminal and a Miami professor?
Why all this Republican romancing of the law-and-order firebrand known as “El Tigre” — The Tiger? Is it because so many Colombian and other Hispanic voters in Florida extol him? Or because he also has the admiration of President Donald Trump, who endorsed him in the June run-off?
"Yeah, El Tigre," Trump said this summer at the White House. "I endorsed him. He was in 10th place, I endorsed him and he won the election!"
De la Espriella was actually the leading candidate when Trump endorsed him. (He'd won the first round of voting.)
Still, Trump’s backing does help explain why Florida’s Republicans keep trumpeting their bond with El Tigre — and with the rising tide of right-wing, pro-Trump presidents in Latin America, from Javier Milei in Argentina to Nayib Bukele in El Salvador.
“To see a Colombian leader rise up on free-market principles, not shy about his Christian faith — that’s inspiring for me and the vital Hispanic community here."
“Latin American people like me, we love President Trump, we admire President Trump," said Alex Visbal, an international legal and investment consultant and a figure close to De la Espriella in their home town of Barranquilla, Colombia.
Visbal spoke in support of Fishback at his Fort Lauderdale event. (De la Espriella himself has not endorsed Fishback or any Florida candidate.) In a conversation later with WLRN, he stressed how much Florida's Hispanics revile the Latin American left — especially the Cuban and Venezuelan regimes, and the Colombian guerrillas, that so many of them fled.
“The Latin American community loves President Trump because the left [has been] very bad for people," Visbal said, "very contrary to the values of family, capitalism, security and democracy.”
As a result, he added, precisely because the Latin American right reveres Trump, it helps Florida Hispanics forget the Trump economic and immigration policies that polls show Hispanics elsewhere in the U.S. have turned sharply against this year.
'Darkest hours'
History, of course, more than confirms that Latin America's right wing — Somoza, Trujillo, Pinochet and so on — has also done its share to trash democracy.
Still, many conservative Hispanic voters in Florida — in particular the younger Hispanic males Fishback's campaign has drawn in large numbers this year — say the affinity candidates like Fishback have for Latin American leaders like De la Espriella matters.
“Now that we’re seeing Latin America turn to the right, we would want someone that gets involved and talks to these leaders," said 19-year-old Cuban-American Joseph Mier, as he stood in line for a selfie with Fishback in Doral last month.
Said Fishback campaign adviser Alexander Munguia, a Salvadoran-American who heads a political and business advisory firm in Miami: "I do think it is very important for [Fishback] to showcase his relationship with people like President-elect De la Espriella or people in his inner circle to the Latino communities in Florida."
Trump and his administration make it no secret that they are in fact on a larger, "Donroe Doctrine" mission to turn the Americas into a right-wing subsidiary of a right-wing America — one that will ramp up the mano dura or "iron fist" militarization of security campaigns like the drug war.
It's what Bukele has done in El Salvador. And it's what De la Espriella, whose key campaign issue was Colombia's public security crisis under outgoing leftist President Gustavo Petro — and who wanted to hold his Friday inauguration at a military garrison before he was talked out of it for constitutional reasons — has promised to do.
"Colombia is going through its darkest hours," he said earlier this year in an apocalyptic tone reminiscent of Trump's.
"I will dare to do what needs to be done ... to save and rebuild Colombia."
Alleged corruption mastermind Alex Saab (right), a former criminal defense client of Colombian President-elect Abelarod de la Espriella, with then Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, in Caracas, on Jan. 23, 2024. (1650x1224, AR: 1.3480392156862746)
In response to the recent electoral phenomenon De la Espriella represents in the hemisphere, Florida Republican lobbyists are working hard to help right-wing clients in Latin America become more politically prominent in their countries — if not become presidents themselves some day — in large part by putting them in the Trump administration's good graces.
"There's a class of Florida Republicans who represent Miami as the gateway to the Americas," South Florida political analyst Sean Foreman of Barry University and the Palmer Trinity school said.
"And so while the Trump administration is in office, they're going to try to help as many favorable governments get elected."
Hialeah's former GOP mayor, Steve Bovo, and the Florida lobbing firm Corcoran & Associates recently brought to their roster right-wing Guatemalan influencer and political aspirant Rodrigo Arenas — whose movement, known as Generations of Life and Liberty, is focused on bringing down current left-of-center President Bernardo Arévalo.
Arenas came close to going to jail for campaign finance fraud less than a decade ago, until a sudden change in Guatemalan law got him off the hook.
And the Republican love affair with De la Espriella also comes with its own big piece of baggage.
As an attorney in Colombia and Miami, De la Espriella defended a host of drug traffickers — and, most notably, Colombian businessman Alex Saab.
Saab is allegedly the embezzlement and money-laundering mastermind who helped Venezuela's socialist regime engineer epic corruption schemes that plundered billions of dollars, helped destroy Venezuela’s economy and force millions of people to flee the country.
Ironically — critics say hypocritically — much of Venezuela's exile leadership in South Florida supported De la Espriella's candidacy in Colombia in spite of his ties to a profiteer who is allegedly complicit in the worst humanitarian crisis in modern South American history. Many Venezuelan expats counter that De la Espriella was simply the lesser of two evils, given the Colombian left's chumminess with the Venezuelan regime Saab served.
This year Venezuela extradited Saab to the U.S., where he faces money-laundering charges. He is currently sitting in a Miami lockup.
De la Espriella has said in the past he holds Saab in “high regard.” Sources familiar with Saab's case say De la Espriella himself was briefly investigated, but not charged.
Still, De la Espriella and his supporters argue that being a criminal defense attorney doesn't make someone a criminal.
And so for now, holding De la Espriella in high regard is what counts politically in Florida.
(1509x275, AR: 5.487272727272727)
De la Espriella, a controversial, "iron fist" right-wing populist, did not get a majority of votes in Colombia's June presidential runoff election. He defeated leftist Sen. Iván Cepeda by less than a percentage point.
In fact, De la Espriella — who holds dual Colombian-U.S. citizenship and has a home here in Pinecrest — may be more popular in Florida than he is in Colombia.
And so in this U.S. midterm election season, more and more Florida Republican politicians want voters to know:
They love Abelardo de la Espriella.
Florida gubernatorial candidate James Fishback — a young, right-wing investment executive from Davie who in recent months has gained some ground on the GOP primary front-runner, Congressman Byron Donalds, ahead of the Aug. 18 election — frequently praises De la Espriella at his campaign events.
By electing De la Espriella, Fishback said at a recent gathering in Fort Lauderdale, "Colombia stood up and rejected the tyranny of the left!"
Fishback — whose mother is Colombian, part of a South Florida expat community that cast more than 90% of its votes for De la Espriella this summer — acknowledges that it's part of his strategy.
“To see a Colombian leader rise up on free-market, rule of law principles, on a grassroots movement that’s not shy about their Christian faith — that’s very inspiring for me and the vital Hispanic community in this state," Fishback told WLRN.
"And the same success that Mr. De la Espriella had in Latin America we will have here on Aug 18.”
Expat Colombians rally for right-wing presidential candidate Abelardo De la Espriella outside the Colombian consulate in Coral Gables on May 31, 2026, as they cast votes in the first round of Colombia's presidential election. (1200x847, AR: 1.4167650531286895)
Polls indicate that's a long shot (especially as Fishback faces accusations of racist, anti-Semitic and misogynist campaign rhetoric, which he denies, and since it turns out his running mate is under criminal investigation in Broward County). Even so, Florida Republicans who stand stronger chances of winning on Aug. 18 are also on the De la Espriella bandwagon.
Ashley Moody, the U.S. Senator who’s up for re-election, made a point recently of sitting down with the Colombian news network NTN24 to laud De la Espriella herself.
The Colombian "won a very hard-fought victory for freedom and democracy," Moody said. "Those are things our large Hispanic population here in Florida teaches us are not to be complacent about."
Not to be outdone, Republican Miami Congresswoman María Elvira Salazar reminds folks on social media that De la Espriella is "a personal friend" who has lived in her 27th District.
Meanwhile, South Florida’s most prominent GOP politico, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, is expected to attend De la Espriella’s inauguration.
READ MORE: Did Colombia's presidential front-runner help hook up a Colombian criminal and a Miami professor?
Why all this Republican romancing of the law-and-order firebrand known as “El Tigre” — The Tiger? Is it because so many Colombian and other Hispanic voters in Florida extol him? Or because he also has the admiration of President Donald Trump, who endorsed him in the June run-off?
"Yeah, El Tigre," Trump said this summer at the White House. "I endorsed him. He was in 10th place, I endorsed him and he won the election!"
De la Espriella was actually the leading candidate when Trump endorsed him. (He'd won the first round of voting.)
Still, Trump’s backing does help explain why Florida’s Republicans keep trumpeting their bond with El Tigre — and with the rising tide of right-wing, pro-Trump presidents in Latin America, from Javier Milei in Argentina to Nayib Bukele in El Salvador.
“To see a Colombian leader rise up on free-market principles, not shy about his Christian faith — that’s inspiring for me and the vital Hispanic community here."
“Latin American people like me, we love President Trump, we admire President Trump," said Alex Visbal, an international legal and investment consultant and a figure close to De la Espriella in their home town of Barranquilla, Colombia.
Visbal spoke in support of Fishback at his Fort Lauderdale event. (De la Espriella himself has not endorsed Fishback or any Florida candidate.) In a conversation later with WLRN, he stressed how much Florida's Hispanics revile the Latin American left — especially the Cuban and Venezuelan regimes, and the Colombian guerrillas, that so many of them fled.
“The Latin American community loves President Trump because the left [has been] very bad for people," Visbal said, "very contrary to the values of family, capitalism, security and democracy.”
As a result, he added, precisely because the Latin American right reveres Trump, it helps Florida Hispanics forget the Trump economic and immigration policies that polls show Hispanics elsewhere in the U.S. have turned sharply against this year.
'Darkest hours'
History, of course, more than confirms that Latin America's right wing — Somoza, Trujillo, Pinochet and so on — has also done its share to trash democracy.
Still, many conservative Hispanic voters in Florida — in particular the younger Hispanic males Fishback's campaign has drawn in large numbers this year — say the affinity candidates like Fishback have for Latin American leaders like De la Espriella matters.
“Now that we’re seeing Latin America turn to the right, we would want someone that gets involved and talks to these leaders," said 19-year-old Cuban-American Joseph Mier, as he stood in line for a selfie with Fishback in Doral last month.
Said Fishback campaign adviser Alexander Munguia, a Salvadoran-American who heads a political and business advisory firm in Miami: "I do think it is very important for [Fishback] to showcase his relationship with people like President-elect De la Espriella or people in his inner circle to the Latino communities in Florida."
Trump and his administration make it no secret that they are in fact on a larger, "Donroe Doctrine" mission to turn the Americas into a right-wing subsidiary of a right-wing America — one that will ramp up the mano dura or "iron fist" militarization of security campaigns like the drug war.
It's what Bukele has done in El Salvador. And it's what De la Espriella, whose key campaign issue was Colombia's public security crisis under outgoing leftist President Gustavo Petro — and who wanted to hold his Friday inauguration at a military garrison before he was talked out of it for constitutional reasons — has promised to do.
"Colombia is going through its darkest hours," he said earlier this year in an apocalyptic tone reminiscent of Trump's.
"I will dare to do what needs to be done ... to save and rebuild Colombia."
Alleged corruption mastermind Alex Saab (right), a former criminal defense client of Colombian President-elect Abelarod de la Espriella, with then Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, in Caracas, on Jan. 23, 2024. (1650x1224, AR: 1.3480392156862746)
In response to the recent electoral phenomenon De la Espriella represents in the hemisphere, Florida Republican lobbyists are working hard to help right-wing clients in Latin America become more politically prominent in their countries — if not become presidents themselves some day — in large part by putting them in the Trump administration's good graces.
"There's a class of Florida Republicans who represent Miami as the gateway to the Americas," South Florida political analyst Sean Foreman of Barry University and the Palmer Trinity school said.
"And so while the Trump administration is in office, they're going to try to help as many favorable governments get elected."
Hialeah's former GOP mayor, Steve Bovo, and the Florida lobbing firm Corcoran & Associates recently brought to their roster right-wing Guatemalan influencer and political aspirant Rodrigo Arenas — whose movement, known as Generations of Life and Liberty, is focused on bringing down current left-of-center President Bernardo Arévalo.
Arenas came close to going to jail for campaign finance fraud less than a decade ago, until a sudden change in Guatemalan law got him off the hook.
And the Republican love affair with De la Espriella also comes with its own big piece of baggage.
As an attorney in Colombia and Miami, De la Espriella defended a host of drug traffickers — and, most notably, Colombian businessman Alex Saab.
Saab is allegedly the embezzlement and money-laundering mastermind who helped Venezuela's socialist regime engineer epic corruption schemes that plundered billions of dollars, helped destroy Venezuela’s economy and force millions of people to flee the country.
Ironically — critics say hypocritically — much of Venezuela's exile leadership in South Florida supported De la Espriella's candidacy in Colombia in spite of his ties to a profiteer who is allegedly complicit in the worst humanitarian crisis in modern South American history. Many Venezuelan expats counter that De la Espriella was simply the lesser of two evils, given the Colombian left's chumminess with the Venezuelan regime Saab served.
This year Venezuela extradited Saab to the U.S., where he faces money-laundering charges. He is currently sitting in a Miami lockup.
De la Espriella has said in the past he holds Saab in “high regard.” Sources familiar with Saab's case say De la Espriella himself was briefly investigated, but not charged.
Still, De la Espriella and his supporters argue that being a criminal defense attorney doesn't make someone a criminal.
And so for now, holding De la Espriella in high regard is what counts politically in Florida.
(1509x275, AR: 5.487272727272727)