The relationship between States Joined y Colombia reached one of its most critical points in decades, after President Donald Trump announce the immediate suspension of financial aid to Bogotaaccusing the president Gustavo Petro of “promoting the mass production of drugs.”
The announcement reconfigures the political and military board in the Caribbeanwhere American ships have carried out lethal operations against alleged drug traffickers of the National Liberation Army (ELN).
The decision to freeze payments—more than $740 million annually, according to data from Washington— comes after a chain of attacks in international waters that have left at least 32 dead. He Pentagon confirmed the most recent: a boat from ELN destroyed in an operation under the Command On.
Petro responded indignantly, accusing States Joined of murdering a civilian fisherman in national waters and violating Colombian sovereignty. “You are rude and ignorant about Colombia,” the president wrote in Xwhile his foreign ministry announced actions before international bodies.
TrumpOn the other hand, he doubled the offensive. On social networks he rated Petro as a “drug trafficking leader” and threatened to “close the extermination camps”—an allusion to the coca-growing areas—“by force.” His administration had already withdrawn Colombia’s certification as an ally in the fight against drugs and revoked the president’s visa.
Since August, a US flotilla has been operating in the Caribbean with the argument of combating drug trafficking, but their attacks have been denounced as military excesses.
The secretary of Defense, Pete Hegsethdefended the operations by stating that Latin American armed groups constitute “the Al Qaeda of the Western Hemisphere,” a phrase that generated alarm in Bogotá and in various academic sectors. Experts warned that such a definition seeks to justify a military offensive without authorization from the US Congress.
In Colombia, the minister of Defense Pedro Sánchez He reiterated that the public force has reduced illicit crops and regretted the deaths of soldiers and civilians in the coca-growing enclaves.