Trump calls Colombian president 'illegal drug leader' as he cuts aid
Trump calls Colombian president 'illegal drug leader' as he cuts aid
M.U.H
20/10/202518
US President Donald Trump has called his Colombian counterpart Gustavo Petro an “illegal drug leader,” after Petro accused the Trump administration of assassination and demanded answers over the recent US strike in Caribbean waters.
Trump claimed in a post on his Truth Social platform on Sunday that President Petro is “strongly encouraging the massive production of drugs” across Colombia.
He called Petro a “low-rated and very unpopular” leader, warning that he “better close up” drug operations or the US “will close them up for him, and it won’t be done nicely.”
Trump also threatened that his administration would cut off all subsidies to the Latin American country.
“The purpose of this drug production is the sale of massive amounts of product into the United States, causing death, destruction, and havoc,” Trump said, adding that US payments and subsidies to Colombia were a rip-off. It was not clear what payments Trump was referring to.
Earlier on Sunday, Petro accused Trump’s government of assassination and demanded answers after the US strike in Caribbean waters.
“US government officials have committed murder and violated our sovereignty in territorial waters,” Petro wrote on X.
Petro said that a Colombian man was killed in a September 16 strike and identified him as Alejandro Carranza, a fisherman from the coastal town of Santa Marta.
He said Carranza had no ties to drug trafficking and that his boat was malfunctioning when it was hit. “The Colombian boat was adrift and had a distress signal on, with one engine up. We await explanations from the US government.”
Colombia’s president emphasized that the boat was used for fishing and not the transportation of drugs.
Petro said he had alerted the attorney general’s office and demanded that it act immediately to initiate legal proceedings internationally and in US courts.
He continued to post a flurry of messages about the killing.
“The United States has invaded our national territory, fired a missile to kill a humble fisherman, and destroyed his family, his children. This is Bolivar’s homeland, and they are murdering his children with bombs,” Petro wrote.
At least 29 people have been killed in strikes that the US has said are targeting alleged drug traffickers.
Last month, the Trump administration accused Colombia of failing to cooperate in the drug war, although at the time Washington issued a waiver of sanctions that would have triggered aid cuts.
Petro has already pledged to tame coca-growing regions in Colombia with huge social and military intervention.
Last month, the US also revoked Petro’s visa after he joined a pro-Palestinian demonstration in New York and urged US soldiers to disobey Trump’s orders.
“I ask all the soldiers of the United States’ army, don’t point your rifles against humanity,” and “disobey the orders of Trump,” Petro back then said.
Petro said the fact that he was barred from entry -- and that his visa was revoked for asking the US and Israeli forces not to support a genocide -- “demonstrates that the US government no longer complies with international law.”
Colombia under Petro has increasingly voiced support for Palestinian rights and condemned Israel's genocidal war on Gaza.
Colombia earlier this month expelled the Israeli regime’s diplomats over Tel Aviv’s aggression targeting an international Gaza-bound aid flotilla, while urging the US president’s imprisonment for Washington’s complicity in the regime’s genocide in the blockaded coastal Palestinian region.
