Trump calls Petro a “thug” and Colombian president reacts
The statements come at the same time that Trump confirmed that he will impose tariffs on Colombia after suspending financial aid
US President Donald Trump said Wednesday that his Colombian counterpart, Gustavo Petro, is a “thug and a bad guy” and accused him of manufacturing “a lot of drugs,” days after accusing him of being a “drug trafficking leader.”
In response, Colombian President Gustavo Petro said he would defend himself against “the slander” in the US courts. "I will always be against genocide and assassinations of power in the Caribbean."
In another episode of the diplomatic conflict, Trump said that Petro "is a thug and a bad guy. He is a guy who manufactures a lot of drugs... He has done a lot of damage to his country. They are doing very badly for them."
The US president referred to the Colombian days after announcing the end of financial aid to Colombia for its inaction in the fight against drug trafficking and calling Petro a “drug trafficking leader.”
“They have cocaine factories. They grow all kinds of crap, and the bad drugs that enter the United States generally pass through Mexico, and he better be careful and take very serious measures against him and his country,” Trump added.
The Republican assured that what Petro “has done to his country is a death trap.”
Petro, for his part, said that “the slander that They have launched, I will defend myself judicially with American lawyers in the American courts."
Furthermore, he has maintained that he will always be "against genocides (like the one in Gaza) and assassinations by those in power in the Caribbean."
Petro has criticized the military operation being carried out by the United States in the Caribbean, off the coast of Venezuela, and has described as "murders" the deaths of some 27 members crew of at least seven boats and a semi-submersible attacked by the Pentagon in that area because they were allegedly transporting drugs.
But these attacks have already spread to the Pacific, off the coast of Colombia, where on Tuesday a boat with two crew members was attacked, who died in that operation.
Petro said that, despite the "slander,"When American society requires Colombia's help in the fight against drug trafficking, it will be available.
“We will fight drug traffickers with the states that want our help,” the president stated.
He also referred to what Juanita Goebertus, Americas director at Human Rights Watch, said, who maintained that US attacks on vessels in the Caribbean, and now in the Pacific, “constitute extrajudicial executions.”