Colombia's unhelpful economic policies

Latin Business Chronicle:

"... the country does not generate sufficient export earnings to cover the costs of its imports, and it constantly reports a trade deficit. Colombia, for example, posted a trade deficit of $272 million in March; meanwhile, most of its peers were reporting huge trade surpluses."

The elephant in the parlor is never mentioned. In this case, of course, I mean the huge trade surplus from the illegal narcotics trade which escapes the official statistics.

This omission is doubly curious here since one of the reasons the US government has helped Colombia to keep a foothold in the US textile and apparel market is the War on Drugs.