Palm Beach: President Donald Trump announced on Sunday that the United States will halt all funding to Colombia, accusing Colombian President Gustavo Petro of failing to stop drug production in the country, highlighting growing tensions between Washington and one of its closest Latin American allies.
In a post on his Truth Social platform, Trump referred to Petro as “an illegal drug dealer” who is “low rated and very unpopular.” He warned that Petro must “close up” drug operations or “the United States will close them up for him, and it won't be done nicely.” Trump claimed Petro is “strongly encouraging the massive production of drugs, in big and small fields” across Colombia, which he spelled as “Columbia,” and accused him of doing nothing despite “large scale payments and subsidies from the USA that are nothing more than a long term rip off of America.”
Trump declared: “AS OF TODAY, THESE PAYMENTS, OR ANY OTHER FORM OF PAYMENT, OR SUBSIDIES, WILL NO LONGER BE MADE TO COLUMBIA.” He also criticised Petro for having “a fresh mouth toward America.”
Earlier on Sunday, Petro accused the US government of assassination following a recent American strike in Caribbean waters and demanded explanations. The US said on Saturday it repatriated two survivors of the strike to Colombia and Ecuador. At least 29 people have been killed in American strikes since early September, which the US has said targeted alleged drug traffickers.
In September, the Trump administration had accused Colombia of failing to cooperate in the drug war, though Washington had issued a waiver of sanctions that would have otherwise triggered aid cuts. Colombia remains the world’s largest exporter of cocaine, with coca leaf cultivation reaching an all-time high last year, according to the United Nations.
The State Department recently announced it would revoke Petro’s visa while he was in New York for the UN General Assembly due to his participation in a protest where he urged American soldiers to disobey Trump’s orders. Petro had said, “I ask all the soldiers of the United States' army, don't point your rifles against humanity” and “disobey the orders of Trump.”
Petro also claimed a Colombian man, Alejandro Carranza, a fisherman from Santa Marta, was killed in a September 16 strike. He maintained that Carranza had no ties to drug trafficking and that his boat was malfunctioning when it was hit. “US government officials have committed murder and violated our sovereignty in territorial waters,” Petro wrote on X, adding that he had alerted Colombia’s attorney general to initiate legal proceedings internationally and in US courts.
According to Noticias Caracol, the most recent strike injured a Colombian, who was hospitalised after repatriation and remains in serious condition. Colombian Interior Minister Armando Benedetti stated that the man “will be prosecuted…as a criminal, because he was carrying a boat full of cocaine,” despite the incident occurring in international waters.
With PTI inputs