The President of the United States, Donald Trump, warned the President of Colombia this Wednesday: Gustavo Petrowho will be “next”, alluding to the pressure exerted by his government against the president of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro.
Asked by the White House press if he planned to speak with Petro soon, the Republican ruled out the possibility, arguing that the Colombian president “he was quite hostile towards the United States”.
“I hope he listens to me. He’ll be next,” said Trump, who said Petro “is going to be in big trouble if he doesn’t realize” that Colombia “produces a lot of drugs.” “To have cocaine factories where they produce cocaineas you know, and they sell it directly to the United States,” he said.
The United States withdrew Colombia from list of countries cooperating in the fight against drugs and subsequently sanctioned Petro, whom he accused of being a “drug trafficking leader.”
Trump calls Colombia this way in the crosshairs of Operation Lanza del Sur, which he ordered with the argument of fighting drug trafficking in Latin America and which triggered tensions with the Maduro government in Venezuela.
Petro: “Trump is not informed”
Gustavo Petro responded to Trump’s threat by declaring that the US president “is not informed” about Colombia: “He is a very ill-informed man about Colombia. It’s a shame because he rejects the country that knows the most about cocaine trafficking. “It seems that his interlocutors are completely deceiving him.”
In this sense, Petro emphasized that during his government, which began on August 7, 2022, there were “1,446 land battles against the mafias” and “13 bombings, many with shared military intelligence.”
“My government has seized 2,700 tons of cocaine so far, and “We are going to approach 4,000 tonnes.”said the Colombian president, who said it was “the largest seizure in world history.”
Likewise, he declared that he has never been “hostile to the United States which fights for freedom and democracy”, but that he does not accept “impositions and even less based on misinformation of people who allow themselves to be advised by Colombian politicians allied to the mafias or by former soldiers on whom major acts of destruction of human rights or businesses fall.
US seizes Venezuelan tanker
Since September, the US military has destroyed more than twenty boats allegedly loaded with drugs in the Caribbean and Pacific, near Venezuela and Colombia, extrajudicially killing more than 80 crew members.
Trump promised they would start “soon” attacks on Venezuelan territorywhile Maduro called on his citizens to unite against US threats and enlist in citizen militias.
This Wednesday, the United States further increased pressure around Venezuela by intercept and confiscate an oil tanker off the coast of the South American country, as part of the naval and military deployment that Washington has maintained since last August in the Caribbean.
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