Colombia has condemned US airstrikes on vessels allegedly involved in drug-smuggling off the coast of South America, urging Washington to immediately halt further attacks in the Pacific and Caribbean.
The plea came after Pete Hegseth, the US secretary of defense, announced two new strikes on Wednesday, which were the first to hit the Pacific and left at least five people dead. According to US figures, at least nine attacks have now been carried out since early September, killing 37 people. A broad range of experts have said the campaign is illegal.
“Colombia calls on the US government to cease these attacks and urges it to respect the norms dictated by international law,” the foreign ministry said in a statement on Wednesday evening.
Gustavo Petro, the president, was more blunt, writing on social media: “It is murder. Whether in the Caribbean or Pacific, the US government strategy breaks the norms of international law.”
Washington initially said the campaign, launched on 2 September, was aimed at destroying cartels operating out of Venezuela. Donald Trump justified the attacks by claiming the US was in an “armed conflict” with narcotraffickers, while Nicolás Maduro accused him of seeking regime change. The attacks have been accompanied by a major US military buildup in the Caribbean, involving guided missile destroyers, F-35 fighter jets, a nuclear submarine and about 6,500 troops.
The decision to extend operations into the Pacific – and the targeting of Colombian vessels – has further deepened tensions in the region and raised fears over what the US administration might do next.
Elizabeth Dickinson, senior analyst at the International Crisis Group, said what initially began as a pressure campaign against Venezuela “is quickly spreading its tentacles across the rest of the region”.
The attacks have further embittered relations between the US and Colombia, which have traditionally been close allies. The two countries have long shared intelligence to intercept cocaine shipments at sea and dismantle the criminal networks behind them. According to a government website, the US provided over $740m (£551m) in aid to Colombia in 2023.
Trump responded to Petro’s comments by describing his Colombian counterpart as a “thug”, “a bad guy” and an “illegal drug trafficker”.
And the attacks have also drawn criticism from another Latin leader with uneasy relations with the US: Claudia Sheinbaum, the Mexican president who has worked with the Trump administration over border security and trade, also criticised the operations on Thursday. “Obviously we do not agree,” Sheinbaum said. “There are international laws on how to operate when dealing with the alleged illegal transport of drugs or guns on international waters.”
Trump administration officials have framed the attacks, which have mostly targeted vessels near Venezuelan waters, as a counternarcotics operation. But they coincide with mounting US pressure on Maduro, Venezuela’s strongman leader, and Trump has publicly confirmed authorising covert CIA operations within Venezuela.
The US is facing its worst drug crisis in history, with roughly 100,000 Americans dying each year from overdoses, mostly caused by fentanyl and other opioids. The synthetic drug is largely produced in labs in China and Mexico before being smuggled into the United States by its southern border.
Colombia, by contrast, produces virtually no fentanyl but remains the world’s top cocaine supplier, with cultivation and production at record highs, according to the United Nations. The drug is mainly smuggled along the Pacific maritime corridor, before being handed to Mexican cartels, or moved overland to Ecuador, where it is shipped abroad in containers – often hidden among banana exports. About a quarter is also smuggled via the Caribbean, according to a 2019 report by the US Drug Enforcement Administration.
Ecuador itself produces no cocaine but has become a key transit hub in recent years, also receiving shipments from Peru and Bolivia. A small share is moved by clandestine flights, often routed through Venezuela, to Mexico or Central America.
Even if the US is correct that the targeted vessels were carrying drugs, “these would be low-level traffickers, the least of the least within the organisation”, said Dickinson. “Attacking them would have little or no material effect on the actual trafficking of drugs to the United States or elsewhere,” she added.
A mid-September attack killed a Colombian fisherman called Alejandro Carranza, Petro and the man’s family said. “Why did they just take his life like that?” asked Katerine Hernández, Carranza’s wife, who also denied that he was a drug trafficker.
Trump suggested on Wednesday that he would soon order strikes against land targets, saying that the attacks had driven smugglers on to land routes. He added that he would “probably go back to Congress and explain exactly what we are doing” beforehand.
“We will hit them very hard when they come in by land,” Trump said. “They haven’t experienced that yet, but now we are totally prepared to do that.”
