Colombia’s Ban on Coal Exports to Israel Is in Danger
Colombia proved that a nation could ban energy shipments to Israel’s war machine. Fossil capital is trying to ensure that no other state dares to do the same.
After Colombia successfully halted coal shipments to Israel’s war machine, South Africa kept Israel’s coal plants burning. (Schneyder Mendoza / AFP via Getty Images)
On July 24, 2025, the Malta-flagged bulk carrier Fortune left Puerto Drummond on Colombia’s Caribbean coast with 93,297 tonnes of thermal coal in its holds, bound for Hadera. Later that day, Gustavo Petro declared that not another ton of Colombian coal would reach Israel, denouncing the loophole that had allowed the trade to continue under the embargo initiated in 2024.
Six hundred fifty thousand tons of Colombian coal went to Israel in 2025, all of it from Puerto Drummond. Decree 1047 had announced an embargo, but it had not stopped the ships. Petro’s order to the navy to intercept further shipments enforced the 2024 ban that the first legal decree alone had failed to accomplish. The July 24 shipment would be the last.
Colombia’s coal embargo attempted to turn solidarity with Palestine into an interruption of fossil supply, and the reaction to it reveals the legal and commercial machinery built to prevent such interruptions from proliferating.
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