President Trump has issued a statement attacking Colombian President Gustavo Petro after the Latin American leader accused the US of “murder” for bombing a boat in Colombian waters.
On Saturday, Petro said that a US strike on a boat in September killed a Colombian fisherman. “US government officials have committed a murder and violated our sovereignty in territorial waters,” Petro wrote on X. “Fisherman Alejandro Carranza had no ties to the drug trade and his daily activity was fishing. The Colombian boat was adrift and had its distress signal up due to an engine failure. We await explanations from the US government.”
The Trump administration has offered no evidence to back up its claims about who it has been bombing in the Caribbean. A day after Petro’s comments, Trump accused Petro of being a “drug leader” and vowed that he would cut aid to Colombia, a longtime close partner and ally of the US.
“President Gustavo Petro, of Colombia, is an illegal drug leader strongly encouraging the massive production of drugs, in big and small fields, all over Colombia. It has become the biggest business in Colombia, by far, and Petro does nothing to stop it, despite large scale payments and subsidies from the USA that are nothing more than a long term rip off of America,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “AS OF TODAY, THESE PAYMENTS, OR ANY OTHER FORM OF PAYMENT, OR SUBSIDIES, WILL NO LONGER BE MADE TO COLOMBIA.”
Trump added that Petro “better close up these killing fields immediately, or the United States will close them up for him, and it won’t be done nicely.”
In response to Trump’s comments, Colombia withdrew its ambassador from Washington, and Colombian Interior Minister Armando Benedetti said the US president’s remarks were a “threat of invasion or military action against Colombia.” In another post on X, Petro blamed the cocaine trafficking in Colombia on “consumption” in the US and said his government had taken a lot of action against the Cocaine trade.
“During the years of my government, when the greatest effort was made against drug traffickers, halting the expansion of coca leaf cultivation—which now only grew by 3% in 2024—and half of the crops, for the past three years, have been abandoned in the jungle, as the UN report states, and we have seized more than 2,800 tons of cocaine as never before in history,” Petro said.
The left-wing leader has previously clashed with Trump about military deportation flights and has been very critical of Israel’s genocidal war in Gaza, going as far as calling for an international armed force to stop it. While in New York for the UN General Assembly last month, Petro addressed pro-Palestine protesters and called on US troops to “disobey” orders from Trump, prompting the Trump administration to revoke his visa.
Petro has also rejected the US push toward an attempt at regime change in Venezuela. “The Venezuelan people do not want invasions, blockades, or threats against them, no matter who they come from,” he said on Monday.
