Trump calls Colombia’s Petro ‘a drug leader’, says US to cut aid to country

United States President Donald Trump has called his Colombian counterpart Gustavo Petro an “illegal drug leader”, announcing that the US will slash funding to the South American nation.

President Petro is “strongly encouraging the massive production of drugs” across Colombia, Trump claimed in a post on his Truth Social platform on Sunday, in which he repeatedly spelled it as “Columbia”.
He called Petro a “low rated and very unpopular” leader, warning that he “better close up” drug operations or the US “will close them up for him, and it won’t be done nicely”.

“The purpose of this drug production is the sale of massive amounts of product into the United States, causing death, destruction, and havoc,” Trump added, saying US payments and subsidies to Colombia were a rip-off.

“AS OF TODAY, THESE PAYMENTS, OR ANY OTHER FORM OF PAYMENT, OR SUBSIDIES, WILL NO LONGER BE MADE,” he wrote in capital letters. It was not clear what payments Trump was referring to.

A while later, US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, writing on X, said the Pentagon had attacked and destroyed a vessel associated with a Colombian group “in the USSOUTHCOM area of responsibility”, which includes the Caribbean, on Friday.

Hegseth said three people were killed in the attack, claiming that the ship was affiliated with the leftist rebel group National Liberation Army and was involved in illicit narcotics smuggling, without offering evidence to back the claim.

Trump comments ‘undermine dignity’ of Colombians
Hours after Trump’s comments, Petro responded angrily in a series of posts on X.