Washington — President Trump called Colombia’s president an “illegal drug leader” on Sunday and pledged to end U.S. aid to the South American country, following the leader’s criticism of U.S. strikes on alleged drug boats in the Caribbean.
Mr. Trump accused Colombian President Gustavo Petro in a post on Truth Social of “encouraging the massive production of drugs, in big and small fields.”
“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,” the president said, continuing in all caps: “AS OF TODAY, THESE PAYMENTS, OR ANY OTHER FORM OF PAYMENT, OR SUBSIDIES, WILL NO LONGER BE MADE TO COLOMBIA.”
Hours earlier, Petro accused the U.S.in a series of X posts of hitting a fishing vessel in a strike it carried out last month, not a boat carrying drugs as it had claimed at the time. The Colombian leader said a fisherman had been killed in the attack, saying that in doing so the U.S. had “invaded national territory.” He made a similar allegation earlier this month, claiming another boat that was struck by the U.S. military carried Colombian citizens — which the U.S. denied.
Petro’s intervention has added to mounting scrutiny of the administration’s strikes, which it has characterized as being part of a broader effort to combat drug smuggling and stem the flow of narcotics into the U.S.
It comes after a U.S. strike Thursday on a vessel in the Caribbean Sea, the sixth known attack in the area since last month, and the first in which survivors were reported. Mr. Trump said Saturday that the two survivors, one from Ecuador and the other from Colombia, would be returned to their countries of origin.
Meanwhile, Mr. Trump said in his post Sunday that the U.S. will no longer offer payments and subsidies to Colombia, claiming that the country’s drug production is intended for “the sale of massive amounts of product into the United States, causing death, destruction, and havoc.”
“Petro, a low rated and very unpopular leader, with a fresh mouth toward America, better close up these killing fields immediately, or the United States will close them up for him, and it won’t be done nicely,” the president said.
Petro pushed back on Mr. Trump’s allegations in a post on X, arguing that he has been the primary foe of drug trafficking in his country in recent years.
Last month, the Trump administration added Colombia to its list of countries it deems as failing to uphold its responsibilities to control drug trafficking for the first time in almost three decades. The department said that under Petro’s leadership, “coca cultivation and cocaine production have reached record highs while Colombia’s government failed to meet even its own vastly reduced coca eradication goals.”
At the same time, the administration issued a waiver allowing Colombia, a traditional U.S. ally in anti-drug trafficking efforts, to continue to receive aid.
It is not clear what U.S. payments to Colombia will now be cut off.
Petro, the first leftist elected president of Colombia in decades, has repeatedly clashed with the Trump administration in recent weeks. In addition to his criticism on social media, he denounced the strikes on alleged drug boats in a speech before the United Nations last month and later, during a New York protest event, encouraged members of the U.S. military to “disobey” Mr. Trump’s orders. The move prompted the State Department to announce it would revoke Petro’s visa.
The strikes on alleged drug-smuggling boats have also drawn backlash from neighboring Venezuela, which has accused the Trump administration of aggression. The administration has accused Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro of working with drug cartels, which he has denied.
