US President Donald Trump. President Gustavo Petro of Colombia accused the US of murder in the death of a fisherman in a strike in the Caribbean last week. Photo / Doug Mills, The New York Times
US President Donald Trump. President Gustavo Petro of Colombia accused the US of murder in the death of a fisherman in a strike in the Caribbean last week. Photo / Doug Mills, The New York Times
President Gustavo Petro of Colombia has accused the United States of murdering an innocent fisherman in an attack on a boat that American authorities claimed was carrying illicit drugs.
That prompted US President Donald Trump to yesterday declare that he would slash assistance to Colombia, one of Washington’s topaid recipients in Latin America, and impose new tariffs on the country’s goods.
The feuding between the two leaders reflected rising tensions in the region over the huge US military deployment in the Caribbean targeting Colombia’s neighbour, Venezuela.
US forces have killed dozens of people in recent weeks aboard vessels that the Trump Administration says were ferrying drugs from Venezuela.
The Administration has provided no evidence to support the claims beyond descriptions of intelligence assessments and declassified videos of portions of the attacks.
Legal specialists have called such killings illegal, because militaries cannot lawfully target civilians who do not pose a threat in the moment and are not directly participating in hostilities.
“US government officials have committed a murder and violated our sovereignty in territorial waters,” Petro wrote on social media.
He said the man killed in the mid-September attack, Alejandro Carranza, was a “lifelong fisherman” whose boat had experienced damage and was adrift, probably in Colombian waters, at the time of the attack.
His description of Carranza and his boat could not be immediately confirmed.
Trump responded by accusing Petro of not doing enough to curb the production of illegal drugs, calling him an “illegal drug dealer” with “a fresh mouth toward America”.
Trump also said that the US would halt aid payments to Colombia, which has long ranked among the largest recipients worldwide of US counter-narcotics assistance.
He later told reporters on Air Force One that he would announce new tariffs on Colombian goods today.
The two presidents have had a stormy relationship since the start of the second Trump Administration.
In January, just days after Trump came into office, he threatened to impose sky-high tariffs on Colombia when Petro moved to block Trump’s use of military aircraft to deport thousands of migrants to Colombia.
The US also revoked Petro’s visa during the United Nations General Assembly in September, after he called for American soldiers to disobey Trump at a pro-Palestinian rally in New York.
Still, it was not immediately clear what impact Trump’s new aid cuts could have.
The Trump Administration already had slashed aid to Colombia this year, as it did in other parts of Latin America.
Colombia had been set to receive more than US$400 million ($700m) in aid at the start of the year, according to Adam Isacson, director of defence oversight at the Washington Office on Latin America, a research group. He said the earlier cuts had left Colombia with about one-fourth of that.
While Colombia and the US still co-operate on counternarcotics efforts, overall US assistance to the country had also declined from the years of “Plan Colombia”, an early 2000s initiative that wound down a decade ago and was aimed at combating both drug cartels and armed leftist insurgencies.
Colombian President Gustavo Petro speaks at the United Nations last month. Photo / Leonardo Munoz, AFP
Beyond the effect on aid, the quarrelling underscores how Colombia could face greater fallout from the US military deployment in the Caribbean.
Colombia is by far the world’s largest producer of cocaine, and a much larger player in the global drug trade than Venezuela, which produces negligible amounts of cocaine and plays essentially no role in the production or smuggling of fentanyl.
Soon after Trump issued his call to halt aid to Colombia, Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth announced yet another strike on a vessel, which Hegseth claimed was connected to a Colombian rebel group, the National Liberation Army.
Without providing evidence for his claims, Hegseth said the boat, which was attacked on Saturday had been carrying narcotics.
The deployment of US forces is the largest in the region in decades, including about 10,000 US troops and dozens of military aircraft and ships.
While the Trump Administration says it is a counterdrug and counterterrorism mission, officials have privately made it clear that the main goal is to drive Venezuela’s authoritarian leader, Nicolas Maduro, from power.
Petro, a leftist and former member of an urban guerrilla group who became president in 2022, has repeatedly expressed support for Maduro as the crisis simmers between Washington and Caracas.
The Colombian President has shown a willingness to spar with Trump, in sharp contrast to the cautious stances most other Latin American leaders have adopted with the Trump Administration.
In Colombia, Petro’s positioning drew varied responses. Vicky Davila, a journalist and conservative presidential contender, expressed support for Trump saying yesterday on social media, “Petro and his corrupt Government have favoured drug-trafficking in every way possible.”
Senator Ivan Cepeda, a supporter of Petro, suggested Trump should instead focus on the ample demand for illegal drugs in the US.
“We have a dignified president, one who does not kneel and who demands that the US take responsibility for its role in the drug trafficking problem,” Cepeda said.
In social media posts over the weekend, Petro urged his attorney-general to help the family of Carranza, the fisherman killed in the September attack, to file claims against the US.
Petro suggested the Carranza family bring claims in collaboration with a Trinidadian family that also says a relative was killed in another US strike.
Although the US campaign in the Caribbean has been aimed primarily at those suspected of being Venezuelan drug runners, the strikes have killed or wounded individuals from other countries.
Another Colombian, Jeison Obando Perez, 34, was caught up in the sixth such US airstrike last week, along with a citizen of Ecuador. Both survived.
They were aboard a semisubmersible that was blown up last Friday and rescued by US forces and initially treated aboard a US Navy ship in the Caribbean.
Obando Perez was repatriated and hospitalised in Colombia with brain trauma and was breathing on a ventilator, Armando Benedetti, Colombia’s Minister of the Interior, said.
Once he is awake, he will be “processed by the justice system for drug-trafficking”, Benedetti said.
The other survivor was returned to Ecuador and was undergoing medical evaluation.