U.S. sanctions Colombia’s president in an escalation of tensions in Latin America
MEXICO CITY — The United States imposed sanctions on Colombian President Gustavo Petro on Friday and announced it would send a massive aircraft carrier to waters off the coast of South America; This is a new escalation in what the White House describes as a war against drug traffickers in the region. Also on Friday, the US military carried out its 10th attack on a boat suspected of drug smuggling in the Caribbean Sea, killing six people.
Pointing out that cocaine production in Colombia has increased in recent years, the Treasury Department said that sanctions would be imposed on Petro, his wife, his son and a political partner for not stopping the flow of cocaine to the United States. US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent accused Petro of “poisoning Americans”.
In his statement about X, Petro denied these allegations and said that he had been fighting for decades to combat drug trafficking. He said it was “quite a paradox” that sanctions were imposed by a country with high cocaine consumption.
The sanctions put Petro in the same category as the leaders of Russia and North Korea and limit his ability to travel to the United States. They mark a new low in relations between Colombia and the United States, which until recently were strong allies, sharing military intelligence, a strong trade relationship and a multibillion-dollar fight against drug trafficking.
Elizabeth Dickinson, a senior analyst for the Andes region at the International Crisis Group, a think tank, said that although Petro and the U.S. government had disagreements about how to deal with smuggling (the Americans were more interested in destroying coca plantations, while the Colombians were focused on seizing cocaine), the two countries had been working toward the same goal for decades.
“It is wrong and disingenuous to suggest that Colombia has not tried,” Dickinson said. “If the United States has a partner in the fight against narcotics in Latin America, it is Colombia. Colombian forces have been working hand in hand with the Americans for literally 40 years. They are the best, most capable and frankly most willing partner the United States has in the region.
“If the US were to cut off this relationship, it would actually be shooting itself in the foot.”
Many saw the sanctions as punishment for Petro’s criticism of Trump. Petro has accused the United States of murder in recent days, saying that the alleged American attacks on drug boats lack legal basis and kill civilians. He also accused the United States of building military forces in South America. Overthrowing Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.
The acceleration of US air strikes in the region and the unusually large build-up of military forces in the Caribbean Sea fueled these speculations.
The United States has ordered the USS Gerald R. Ford and its strike group to be deployed to U.S. Southern Command to “increase its capacity to detect, track and disrupt illicit actors and activities that endanger the security and prosperity of the United States,” a Pentagon official said Friday.
USS Ford is currently deployed in the Mediterranean along with three destroyers. The ships’ journey to South America would probably take several days.
The White House is attracting more attention direct comparison Between the war on terrorism declared by the USA after the September 11, 2001 attacks and the Trump administration’s crackdown on drug traffickers.
Trump this month Declared drug cartels as illegal combatants and that the United States was in “armed conflict” with them based on the legal authority used by the Bush administration after 9/11.
When reporters asked Trump on Thursday if he would ask Congress to declare war on the cartels, he said that was not the plan.
“I think we’re going to kill the people who bring drugs into our country, okay? We’re going to kill them, you know? It’ll be as if they’re dead,” Trump said at a roundtable meeting with Homeland Security officials at the White House.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
