New statements by U.S. President Donald Trump threaten military action against Colombia, in the context of the U.S. deployment in the Caribbean and its tense relationship with Venezuela, under the pretext of the fight against drug trafficking.
On the same day that U.S. troops seized an oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela, accused of having transported oil to Iran, Trump repeated his threat against the Petro government, accusing it of allowing cocaine production.
Trump said the country produces “a lot of drugs” and stressed that President Gustavo Petro must “realize” the situation; otherwise, he warned that Colombia could become the United States’ “next target” after Venezuela.
Trump repeated a harsh warning to Colombia’s Petro after operations in the Caribbean
In statements to the press made yesterday, Wednesday, Dec. 10, from the White House, Donald Trump revived warnings about the Petro government in Colombia, following a new escalation in his confrontation with Nicolas Maduro in Venezuela after the seizure of an oil tanker that had departed from a port in the South American country.
“Colombia is producing a lot of drugs, a lot. They have cocaine factories … and they sell it directly to the United States. So, they’d better come to their senses, or he’ll be next. He’ll be next too. … And I hope he’s listening. He’ll be next. … Because we don’t like people who kill people and sell drugs. … And Colombia is a big producer of drugs, meaning cocaine in particular, as you know,” the U.S. president told the press.
In a display of staged disdain and, after being asked whether the White House maintains contacts with the Petro government, Trump replied: “The truth is that I haven’t thought much about him. He has been quite hostile toward the United States, and I haven’t given him much importance. He’s going to have serious problems if he doesn’t realize that.”
All of this comes after more than two months of an impressive military deployment in Caribbean waters, with 23 military operations against alleged “narco-boats,” actions that have officially left 87 dead, under the unproven accusation of being players in drug trafficking.
Moreover, the ideological differences that since the beginning of Trump’s term have shaped relations between Colombia and the United States have pushed the two governments apart to the point of turning the United States’ traditional ally in the region into the focus of Trump’s new military threats.
Colombia’s Petro and his fight against drug trafficking, ‘without a single death’
Gustavo Petro’s response was swift. In a comment posted yesterday afternoon on his account on the social network X, the Colombian president boasted of a drug seizure that same day involving narcotics bound for Europe, an operation that was carried out “without a single death.”
“The national police seized a ton of cocaine in Cartagena. The cocaine was in vehicles and was stopped in Cartagena without a single death. It was bound for Milan, Italy,” he wrote.
La policia nacional incauta una tonelada de cocaína en Cartagena.
La cocaína venía en vehículos y fue detenida en Cartagena sin un solo muerto. Iba con destino a Milán, Italia. pic.twitter.com/vZ1WuXsS0z
— Gustavo Petro (@petrogustavo) December 10, 2025
Hours later, in a lengthy social media post, Petro directly responded to the new accusations and threats from the U.S. president. “Trump is a very misinformed man about Colombia. It’s a shame, because he dismisses the country that knows the most about cocaine trafficking. It seems that his interlocutors completely deceive him,” he said.
“There have been more than 1,446 ground engagements against the mafias carried out by our military forces during my administration, and 13 bombings aimed at locating their leaders — many of these operations conducted with shared military intelligence. There are 2,700 tons of cocaine seized by my government, the largest seizure in the history of the world. That means 32 billion doses that did not reach the U.S. or other consumer countries,” he continued, offering an overview of his administration’s anti-drug efforts.
In his post, Petro pointed to his predecessor, President Ivan Duque, as responsible for the increase in coca crops. “We inherited from the Duque government the highest number of hectares of coca leaf in Colombia’s history, with annual growth rates of 45%,” and he recalled that “it was Trump himself who publicly denounced the atrocity committed in 2020, when coca leaf cultivation skyrocketed under the Duque administration,” asserting that this year “the crops stopped growing.”
After reaffirming his “differences” with the U.S. government and defending his “right to express them,” Gustavo Petro said that “it is not true that launching missiles at boatmen is fighting narcoterrorists, when the boatmen are poor people … and when the drug trafficking kingpins live on yachts near Dubai, in Madrid, etc.”
Trump es un hombre muy desinformado de Colombia. Es una lástima, porque deshecha el país que más sabe de tráfico de Cocaína.
Parece que sus interlocutores lo engañan por completo.
Son más de mil cuatrocientos cuarenta y seis combates en tierra contra las mafias hechas por…
— Gustavo Petro (@petrogustavo) December 11, 2025
Persecution of narco capital and criticism for pardoning Juan Orlando Hernandez
Finally, the Colombian president recalled that he had requested a global plan to combat and pursue the assets and capital of drug traffickers, placing the focus of the fight against drugs on the major kingpins and their wealth.
“It’s not by pardoning them; I don’t agree with those decisions. Negotiating sentences with narcos is something the justice system does, not governments. If we can save lives, all the better, but the goal is to dismantle drug trafficking, not encourage it,” he said, in a clear reference to Donald Trump’s controversial decision to pardon former Honduran president Juan Orlando Hernandez, who was serving a 20-year prison sentence for drug trafficking.
In defending his anti-drug policy, Petro stated that “cocaine capital no longer enters Colombia. It is in the international financial system. With coordinated international police intelligence, we can seize it. Because of these ideas, the international mafias that own Colombia’s cocaine trafficking threaten my daughters and my family. I don’t want to see U.S. presidents helping with those threats.”
After recalling his two-decade commitment to fighting these mafias, he said he was alive “by a miracle,” and lamented that the same mobsters he fought are now going to the U.S. “to spread misinformation.” In this regard, Petro pointed out that the largest quantity of drugs bound for the U.S. departs via the Pacific and not the Caribbean, and that it travels on large vessels far more often than on narco-speedboats.
Related: Petro Invites Trump to Colombia, and the White House Says It Will Consider the Visit.