Colombia's president, Gustavo Petro, has warned Donald Trump that he risks “waking the jaguar” after the US president suggested that any country he believed was making illegal drugs destined for the United States could face military attack.
During a cabinet meeting on Tuesday, Mr Trump said that military strikes on land targets inside Venezuela would “start very soon”. He also said that any country producing narcotics was a potential target, singling out Colombia, which has long been a close ally in Washington’s “war on drugs”.
Shortly afterwards, Mr Petro hit back in a social media post, saying: “To threaten our sovereignty is to declare war; do not damage two centuries of diplomatic relations.” He also invited Mr Trump to visit Colombia – the world’s largest producer of cocaine – to see his government’s efforts to destroy drug-producing labs. “Come with me, and I’ll show you how they are destroyed, one lab every 40 minutes,” he wrote.
The relationship between the two countries has deteriorated since Mr Trump took office for his second term. In January, Mr Petro refused entry to American planes carrying deported Colombians, insisting they be treated with dignity. In September, after attending the UN general assembly, he joined a pro-Palestine protest in New York and urged US soldiers to disobey Mr Trump’s orders. The US state department subsequently revoked Mr Petro’s visa, and Mr Trump accused him, without providing evidence, of being an “illegal drug trafficker”.
Tensions have escalated since August, when the Pentagon deployed a naval force of nearly 15,000 troops near Venezuela and carried out strikes on small boats alleged to be carrying drugs, killing more than 80 people. Mr Trump said on Tuesday that land strikes would follow, and when asked whether they would be limited to Venezuela, he replied: “I hear Colombia, the country of Colombia, is making cocaine... But yeah, anybody that’s doing that and selling it into our country is subject to attack.” His remarks came just hours after Juan Orlando Hernández, a former Honduran president convicted of drug trafficking, was released from a US prison after receiving a pardon from Mr Trump.
