US President Donald Trump warned on Tuesday that any country that produces and smuggles drugs into the United States, including Colombia, is “under attack.” The Republican told the press at the end of a meeting with his government at the White House: “I heard that Colombia produces cocaine. They have manufacturing factories. Then they sell us cocaine. Anyone who does that and sells it to our country is exposed to attacks, and not necessarily just Venezuela.”
Colombian President Gustavo Petro responded to Trump by saying that his government destroyed “without missiles” 18,400 cocaine laboratories in Colombia. He said on the social network
Trump’s threat raises the tone against Colombia, the world’s largest cocaine producer, by placing it on the same level as its neighbor Venezuela, a country with which tensions have not stopped escalating. The American strongly criticized the Petro government’s approach to its war against drugs and accused him, without clear evidence, of being a “drug trafficking leader.” The US Treasury Department imposed sanctions on the Colombian president last October, and he was included in the so-called Clinton list, or the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), which includes drug traffickers, terrorists, or mafia members.
Petro was also one of the most important Latin American leaders in the US military campaign in the Caribbean and Pacific against alleged drug traffickers, in which more than 80 people have already been killed. The United Nations considers these attacks, formulated in the so-called Southern Spear operation that began last September, to constitute a “violation of international law” and “extrajudicial executions,” in the words of the organization’s human rights chief, Volker Türk.
In addition, the Colombian president contradicted Trump’s warning last week to close Venezuelan airspace. He said at the time: “The United States does not have the right to close Venezuelan airspace. It can do so with its own airlines, but not with the world’s airlines. Colombia is re-establishing civil air service with Venezuela and calling on the world to do so. It is time for dialogue, not barbarism.”
Fears of an air attack on Venezuelan territory or a ground incursion into that country have increased in recent weeks. The White House does not rule out launching an “on the ground” operation to “unmask the sons of bitches,” in reference to drug traffickers in Venezuela. Although the main target of this campaign is Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, whom Washington accuses of leading the so-called Sun Cartel, the numbers show that Colombia is actually the core of cocaine trafficking in South America.
The country is likely to produce 3,001 tons of cocaine in 2024, according to an internal report seen by this newspaper. This figure represents a 12.6% increase over the previous year – a pace that has slowed, according to the UN report – so the political burden is deadly. It’s the perfect excuse for Trump in his campaign against drug-producing countries, which are now dealing with military targets. The Republican defends that his operations in the region are legitimate to defend against the “drug wave” that the gangs are sending to his territory.