BOGOTA, Colombia, Jan 29, (AP): Colombian migrants returning home Tuesday on Colombian military flights described being shackled during earlier US flights that were blocked by their country’s leader in a dispute with President Donald Trump that nearly sparked a trade war. Deportation flights between the US and Colombia resumed Tuesday after the diplomatic drama over the weekend that provided clues as to how the Trump administration would deal with countries blocking large-scale plans to return migrants who entered illegally.

Colombia’s President Gustavo Petro initially refused to accept two US military planes with migrants, prompting Trump to threaten 25% tariffs on Colombian exports and other sanctions. Colombia then relented and said it would accept the migrants, but fly them on Colombian military flights that Petro said would guarantee them dignity.

Two Colombian air force planes landed Tuesday in Bogota with more than 200 of the migrants, many of them women and children. Petro welcomed them with a post on X, saying they are now "free” and "in a country that loves them.” Colombian Foreign Minister Luis Gilberto Murillo said none of the 200 Colombians who were returned on Tuesday had criminal records in the US or Colombia.

"Migrants are not criminals,” Petro wrote. "They are human beings who want to work and get ahead in life.” One of the migrants, José Montaña of Medellín, said they were put in chains on the earlier U.S. flights. "We were shackled from our feet, our ankles to our hips, like criminals,” Montaña said. "There were women whose kids had to see their moms shackled like they were drug traffickers.”

Some of the migrants told journalists they had been in the United States for less than two weeks, spending most of their time in detention centers. "We went for the American dream, and we ended up living the American nightmare” said Carlos Gómez, a migrant from the city of Barranquilla who left Colombia two weeks ago, flew to Mexico, and crossed the border illegally into California, with the help of smugglers. On Monday evening, Trump recounted the conflict with Petro and maintained that migrants should be restrained when flying back home, arguing it is for security reasons.