Donald Trump issued a threat to Colombia’s president, Gustavo Petro, on Sunday morning after the South American leader spoke out against the deadly U.S. attacks against vessels in the Caribbean the Trump administration has accused of ferrying drugs.
In a Truth Social posting the U.S. president seemed to suggest that Petro’s country could play host to a U.S. invasion or military campaign of some kind as he vowed that his administration would use force to “close” the so-called “killing fields” in Colombia if the Petro government did not take action first.
His remarks refer to areas where cartel violence against civilians and others is rampant, particularly in rural, forested areas where paramilitary groups like the National Liberation Army (ELN) are present. Colombia’s government has struggled against those groups in armed conflicts dating back decades.
“President Gustavo Petro, of Columbia, is an illegal drug leader strongly encouraging the massive production of drugs, in big and small fields, all over Columbia. It has become the biggest business in Columbia, 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 U.S. president wrote on Truth Social on Sunday morning.
He declared that U.S. subsidies to Colombia would end immediately, and warned: “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.”
Trump’s statement came just hours after Petro denounced an escalating campaign of U.S. military strikes against vessels in the Caribbean Sea, which the White House have accused of ferrying drugs bound for the United States. That campaign continues, with the most recent strike being reported on October 16. Two survivors were captured by the U.S. military in the wake of the Oct 16 attack, and were repatriated to Ecuador and Colombia.
Petro, in a statement, wrote that one U.S. strike in September targeted a civilian boat in distress — not a drug-smuggling vessel, as U.S. officials claimed. The Colombian president accused Trump of “murder” over the attack, which killed one person on board.
"The Colombian boat was adrift and had its distress signal up due to an engine failure," said Petro. He added: "We await explanations from the US government."
"Fisherman Alejandro Carranza had no ties to the drug trade and his daily activity was fishing,” said the Colombian president.
Trump’s “explanation” appears to have been an overt threat to engage the U.S. military in an attempt to occupy sovereign Colombian territory. At the same time, the Trump White House is reportedly moving towards a goal of orchestrating regime change in neighboring Venezuela, where like in Colombia the ruling government’s head Nicolas Maduro is accused by Trump officials of operating a state-sponsored drug cartel.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth separately said on Sunday that U.S. forces, striking two days earlier, destroyed a vessel being operated by the ELN, a left-wing paramilitary group which is estimated to be in command of several thousand members and is active in the drug trade.
“The vessel was known by our intelligence to be involved in illicit narcotics smuggling, was traveling along a known narco-trafficking route, and was transporting substantial amounts of narcotics. There were three male narco-terrorists aboard the vessel during the strike—which was conducted in international waters. All three terrorists were killed and no U.S. forces were harmed in this strike,” Hegseth wrote on X.
Confirming that the secretary was speaking about the same incident, Petro responded in his own tweet.
“The fisherman's boat from Santa Marta was not from the ELN; it belonged to a humble family, lovers of the sea, from which they drew their food. What do you say to that family? Explain to me why you helped assassinate a humble fisherman from Santa Marta, the land where Bolívar died, and which they say is the heart of the world. What do you say to the family of the fisherman Alejandro Carranza? He was a humble human being,” wrote the president.
In a third post, Petro delivered a lengthier condemnation of the Trump administration’s foreign policy in the Americas: “A U.S. missile has killed a humble fisherman from Colombia in Santa Marta. The USA destroyed a family of fishermen in the city that will host the summit of Latin America and Europe. The USA has invaded national territory with a missile fired to kill a humble fisherman, has destroyed his family, his children. This is the homeland of Bolívar and they are murdering his children with bombs. The USA offended the national territory of Colombia and killed an honest, hardworking Colombian. Let the sword of Bolívar be raised!”
In Venezuela, the Financial Times reported on Saturday, Trump officials aim to bully top Maduro officials, including possibly the president himself, into resigning or fleeing the country. Opposition figures told the outlet that the White House is implicitly threatening to assasinate Maduro or other government figures if the president does not let go of power.
Meanwhile, the head of the U.S. Southern Command overseeing the strikes and escalation of U.S. military might near Venezuelan territory, just stepped down after expressing concern with the attacks according to a new report.
U.S. officials in both the Trump and Biden administrations have argued that the 2024 elections in Venezuela were fraudulent, and tainted by acts of political repression and other factors. The Trump administration ramped up rhetoric earlier this year when it accused Maduro of direct involvement in drug smuggling operations, though the Justice Department also made that accusation initially in 2020 during the first Trump administration.
According to the DOJ and White House, Maduro runs “Cartel de los Soles”, a drug-smuggling organization linked to the sun emblems on the uniforms of top Venezuelan military brass. It also charged him with running elements of the FARC militant group in Colombia, which largely disbanded three years prior but still maintains some presence.
“In his role as a leader of the Cártel de Los Soles, Maduro Moros negotiated multi-ton shipments of FARC-produced cocaine; directed that the Cártel de Los Soles provide military-grade weapons to the FARC; coordinated foreign affairs with Honduras and other countries to facilitate large-scale drug trafficking; and solicited assistance from FARC leadership in training an unsanctioned militia group that functioned, in essence, as an armed forces unit for the Cártel de Los Soles,” Attorney General Bill Barr said in a statement in 2020.
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