The president of Colombia, , reacted this Wednesday to a new attack from his American counterpart, Donald Trump. Minutes after the American accused him of being “a bully [a thug, en inglés]” and “a bad person”, the president has announced that he will defend himself against “slander” in the American justice system. “I will always be against genocides and assassinations by those in power in the Caribbean,” he declared in X, in reference to the United States attacks on vessels that he claims are transporting drugs.
Of the slander that high officials have hurled at me in the territory of the United States; I will defend myself judicially with American lawyers in the American justice system.
I will always be against genocides and assassinations by those in power in the Caribbean.
When they require our…
— Gustavo Petro (@petrogustavo)
Earlier, Trump insulted Petro again during a conversation with reporters at the White House. After calling him “a drug trafficking leader” over the weekend, he insisted this Wednesday that “he produces a lot of drugs.” “He better be careful, or we will take very severe action against him and his country,” he declared. Likewise, he announced that since this Wednesday payments and subsidies to Colombia have been suspended.
All this occurs just a few hours after Washington attacked a ship that was supposedly transporting drugs, leaving two dead. It is the eighth reported since September – the total death toll is at least 34 people. The novelty is that it is the first in the Pacific Ocean, and not in the Caribbean Sea, and the first that the US authorities recognize took place “off the Colombian coast.” Petro has maintained a striking silence regarding the operation.
However, beyond the North American confirmations, the attack is the fourth for which there are suspicions of a possible link with Colombia. Petro has made complaints about at least three other attacks: that of a fisherman’s boat on September 15, and the one perpetrated on October 17 against a boat that US authorities have linked to the ELN guerrilla. The pressure, originally against Venezuela, is increasingly stronger on Colombia.
Petro has condemned the attacks from the first moment, when they were limited to Venezuela. “If this is true, it is a murder anywhere in the world,” hours after the first operation and in contrast to the relative silence of the other countries in the region. Since then, he has spoken out on several occasions and emphasized that alleged drug traffickers must have due process. “We received the Colombian detained in the drug submarine. We are glad that he is alive and will be processed according to the laws,” he commented after the October 18 attack.
The Trump Administration, meanwhile, justifies the operations with the argument that the United States is in a “non-international armed conflict” with the drug cartels. They point out that the narcotics that these criminal gangs traffic kill tens of thousands of Americans every year and that, therefore, they understand that these alleged drug movements are “armed attacks.” However, US authorities have not yet provided evidence about the crew of those vessels or the cargo they were carrying. Although the death penalty is legal in much of the United States, it is never applied to drug trafficking and there always has to be a prior trial.
Along with the operations, tension has escalated on other fronts. Trump said over the weekend that Petro “incentivizes the mass production of drugs.” The Colombian president responded that he is the one who has fought these criminal activities the most and that people with alleged links to organized crime are, in reality, close to his American counterpart. He considers that Trump has “evil advice” and that some of the politicians around him are “Nazis.” Likewise, he insists on questioning the United States’ support for Israel, which a few weeks ago was . “You cannot obey a tyranny when there is a crime against humanity,” .
