Bogotá (AFP) – Colombia’s ambassador to Washington denounced US President Donald Trump’s threats against his country and President Gustavo Petro as “unacceptable” on Wednesday, warning that a 200-year alliance was being put at risk. Trump on Wednesday branded Petro a “thug,” suggested he was a drug trafficker, and threatened “very serious action” against him and against Colombia. The comments drew an immediate and angry response from Bogota.
“Under no circumstances can one justify that kind of threats and accusations that have no basis whatsoever,” Ambassador Daniel Garcia-Pena told AFP in an interview after being recalled to Bogota for consultations. “There are elements that are unacceptable,” he said, visibly alarmed after being told what Trump had said from the Oval Office just minutes earlier.
Although long-time allies, relations between Washington and Bogota have gone into free fall since Trump and Petro took office. In recent days, Trump has vowed to revoke aid and impose punishing tariffs on Colombia after he and Petro have clashed on social media. “We are facing a US government that is trying to change the paradigm of its international relations, where certainty unfortunately plays a very important role,” Garcia-Pena said. “At stake here is a historic relationship of more than 200 years that benefits both the United States and Colombia,” he said.
The Republican president warned Petro to “watch it,” just hours after the Pentagon announced its first strike on an alleged drug-smuggling boat in the Pacific Ocean. “There were two narco-terrorists aboard the vessel… Both terrorists were killed and no US forces were harmed,” US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth wrote on X, posting a video of the boat engulfed in flames.
The strike, apparently carried out in international waters, brings the total number of such US attacks to at least eight, with 34 people killed, according to US figures. Washington has deployed stealth warplanes and Navy ships as part of what it calls counter-narcotics efforts, but has yet to release evidence that its targets were drug smugglers. Petro has often denounced the strikes.
Colombia is the world’s top cocaine producer but has long worked alongside the United States to curb production, which is controlled by paramilitary, cartel, and guerrilla groups. Petro on Wednesday blasted “slanders that have been thrown at me in the territory of the United States by high-ranking officials,” but said: “When our help is needed to fight drug trafficking, US society will have it.”
© 2024 AFP
