(AFP) – President Donald Trump said Sunday the United States is halting financial aid to Colombia, a longstanding US ally, as he accused its president of condoning the production of drugs. Trump said leftist President Gustavo Petro is doing nothing to stop cocaine production despite “large scale payments and subsidies from the USA.”
“AS OF TODAY, THESE PAYMENTS, OR ANY OTHER FORM OF PAYMENT, OR SUBSIDIES, WILL NO LONGER BE MADE” to Colombia, Trump said on his Truth Social platform, adding that Petro is “strongly encouraging the massive production of drugs.” In the post, Trump repeatedly misspelled the name of the country as Columbia. Last month, Washington announced it had decertified Colombia as an ally in the fight against drugs.
After decades of close alliance in the so-called war on drugs, Trump in September denounced Petro as not only failing to curb cocaine production, but for overseeing its surge to “all-time records,” according to a signed determination the White House sent to Congress. Colombia hit back by halting arms purchases from the United States, its biggest military partner.
The United States last month revoked Petro’s US visa after he spoke at a pro-Palestinian rally in New York on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly. Petro has also been highly critical of a US naval deployment off the coast of Venezuela and US attacks on what Washington says are boats taking drugs toward the United States.
In his post on Sunday, Trump seemed to hint at some kind of US intervention in Colombia, although Trump is known to speak with bluster with no follow-up. “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 wrote.
Since coming to power in 2022, Petro, a former guerrilla, has championed a paradigm shift in the US-led war on drugs, away from forced eradication to focus on the social problems that fuel drug trafficking. Under his watch, cultivation of coca, the raw material of cocaine, has increased by about 70 percent, according to Colombian government and United Nations estimates. Writing on X last month, Petro blamed the figures on what he called increased cocaine consumption worldwide, especially in Europe.
“The world needs to change its anti-drug policy because it has failed,” he said.
© 2024 AFP
