 "US President Donald Trump. Reuters")
US President Donald Trump on Sunday labelled Colombian President Gustavo Petro an “illegal drug leader” and said the United States would stop “large scale payments and subsidies” to Colombia.
Trump claimed that the country’s drug production fuels the sale of “massive amounts of product into the United States, causing death, destruction, and havoc,” in a post on Truth Social.
It is unclear which payments the president was referring to. Colombia was once among the top recipients of US aid in the Western Hemisphere, though funding was sharply reduced this year following the closure of USAID, America’s humanitarian assistance arm.
The Colombian embassy in Washington, D.C. did not immediately comment, while the US State Department deferred questions to the White House, which also did not respond.
Relations between Bogota and Washington have been tense since Trump returned to the White House. Last month, the US revoked Petro’s visa after he attended a pro-Palestinian demonstration in New York and urged US soldiers to defy Trump’s orders.
Petro had pledged last year to curb coca cultivation through large-scale social and military interventions, but the strategy has produced limited results.
In September, Trump designated Colombia, along with Afghanistan, Bolivia, Burma, and Venezuela, as countries that “failed demonstrably” in meeting US counternarcotics requirements over the past year. He directly blamed Colombian political leadership for the shortfall in controlling drug production.
Impact Shorts
More Shorts”Petro … is an illegal drug leader strongly encouraging the massive production of drugs,” said Trump in his post on Sunday, saying U.S. payments and subsidies to Colombia were a rip-off.
”AS OF TODAY, THESE PAYMENTS, OR ANY OTHER FORM OF PAYMENT, OR SUBSIDIES, WILL NO LONGER BE MADE,” he wrote in capital letters.
With inputs from agencies