President Donald Trump announced Sunday he would end all US payments and subsidies to Colombia, marking a dramatic escalation in his back-and-forth with the country’s president, Gustavo Petro.
Trump said in a post to social media that Petro “does nothing to stop” the production of drugs in his country, “despite large scale payments and subsidies from the USA that are nothing more than a long term rip off of America.”
“As of today, these payments, or any other form of payment, or subsidies, will no longer be made to Colombia,” the president said in all caps.
The two leaders have clashed on the issues of migration and drug trafficking, especially as the US conducts strikes on alleged drug boats in the Caribbean, but Sunday’s announcement intensified the friction with new financial stakes.
The US has provided about $210 million in assistance to Colombia this fiscal year, including about $31 million in agricultural support, according to data from the US Department of State. It was not immediately clear which payments Trump was referring to Sunday, but the US is by far the largest funder of Colombia’s security, providing billions of dollars every year. The Andean country had previously been Washington’s most reliable ally in South America on national security and defense.
Trump warned Petro that he “better close up these killing fields,” referring to areas where drugs are produced, “or the United States will close them up for him, and it won’t be done nicely.”
Trump’s comments come after his administration said last month that Colombia had “failed demonstrably” in its obligations to fight drug trafficking but that the US would continue to provide funding to the country. Colombia is the world’s leading producer of cocaine, accounting for almost two-thirds of total production, according to the United Nations Office for Drug and Crime.
Trump and Petro have sparred for months, most recently as Petro accused the US of murdering an innocent Colombian national during one of the Trump administration’s strikes in the Caribbean. Last month, the US revoked Petro’s visa after he publicly called on American soldiers to disobey Trump during a visit to the United Nations General Assembly.
The escalation also comes as the US has taken aim at what it says is illegal drug trafficking in the Caribbean with a series of military strikes on vessels.
On Sunday, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced the US conducted a strike Friday on a boat that American intelligence officials believed had “substantial amounts of narcotics” on board. Hegseth said the vessel was affiliated with a Colombian terrorist organization and that all three men aboard were killed.
That marked the seventh known strike, and came days after another strike on an alleged drug boat that CNN reported appeared to be the first time an attack did not kill everyone on board. Trump announced Saturday that the two survivors of that strike would be returned to their home countries of Ecuador and Colombia.
Trump on Sunday attacked Petro in personal terms, describing him as an “illegal drug leader” with “a fresh mouth.”
Petro responded to Trump later Sunday, and while he did not address the financial implications of a freeze of US assistance, he criticized the US president, invoking his country’s heralded Nobel Prize-winning author, Gabriel García Márquez.
“You are rude and ignorant toward Colombia. Read, as your chargé d’affaires in Colombia did, ‘One Hundred Years of Solitude,’ and I assure you, you will learn something about solitude,” Petro said in a post to social media.
The 1967 novel chronicles the rise and fall of a fictional Colombian town.
Petro continued, “I don’t do business like you do — I am a socialist. I believe in solidarity, the common good, and the shared resources of humanity, the greatest of all: life, now endangered by your oil. If I’m not a businessman, then I am even less a drug trafficker. There is no greed in my heart.”
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