Colombian President Gustavo Petro, left, with Venezuela’s President Nicolás Maduro being saluted by the Presidential Honor Guard at Miraflores Palace, Caracas, in October 2022. Photo: Rayner Pena/Shutterstock/file photo.
Caracas (OrinocoTribune.com)—Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro said Monday that he will always close ranks with Colombia, whose president, Gustavo Petro, was accused—without evidence—Sunday by his US counterpart, Donald Trump, of being a “leader of illegal drug trafficking.”
“At heart, we are Colombia, the profound Great Colombia founded on the Orinoco River by the Liberator Commander SimĂłn BolĂvar,” Maduro said during an activity with communal leaders. “And Colombia knows that we are one, Siamese twins. Whatever happens with Colombia, happens with Venezuela. And whatever happens with Venezuela, happens with Colombia… As a military officer of the Colombian military forces wrote to me two weeks ago: ‘If you touch Venezuela, you touch Colombia.’ We are one homeland of the heart. And we do not say this just for the sake of saying it.”
President Maduro explained that the defensive military drills his government has organized following a US military deployment in the Caribbean Sea are aimed at consolidating a sovereign peace, free from devastation and colonialism.
“The peace we want is not just any peace,” said President Maduro. “It is not the peace of the ruins of Gaza. No, that is not peace. It is not the peace of slaves; it is not the peace of the colonies. Does freedom have an alternative? Freedom or slavery? Does independence have an alternative? Independence or colonization? And I ask the people: do you want to be slaves of US supremacists, for us to lose our freedoms and for them to come and treat us like they treat migrants in the US, with kicks and bullets? Do you want to be slaves again? Do you want us to become a colony again and for them to dictate everything and for them to come and steal our oil and our riches? Neither slaves nor colony: free, sovereign, and independent, today, tomorrow, and forever.”
US threats and Colombian response
The statements come amid an unprecedented impasse between Bogotá and Washington which began after US forces bombed a boat in the Caribbean Sea that Colombia confirmed was in its territorial waters and was occupied by Colombians.
The day before, Trump, after accusing President Petro of leading “drug trafficking,” ordered the suspension of US financial aid to Colombia without specifying which programs. Other spokespeople for his administration raised the possibility of further tariffs against the Colombia’s economy. Trump also threatened military attacks on Colombia.
Regarding this, President Petro said: “Today I will review the measures we will take with the foreign minister, the vice president, our ambassador to the US, the minister of commerce and agriculture, the person in charge of the illicit crop substitution program, and the minister of fefense. We will evaluate the most intelligent Colombian response to this irrational threat.”
The Colombian president is expected to announce the decisions in a cabinet meeting televised on public channels.
Venezuelan defense minister’s support
Venezuelan Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino said Tuesday that “the Colombian people must know that they can count on Venezuela,” referring to the new US threat against Colombia.
“From one day to the next, imperialism offends Colombia,” the minister stated during a televised military ceremony, after saying that the US government’s attack is due to the fact that “anyone who does not say ‘yes’ and kneel before US imperialism already runs the risk of being called a drug trafficker.”
Minister Padrino pointed out that although Trump’s regime wants to disguise the military deployment in the Caribbean as part of a “war on drugs,” the underlying objective is to violate the autonomy of peoples and seize their wealth.
“What is the strategy, what is the intention, what is the air and naval deployment, what is the background, is it really drug trafficking?” he questioned, while affirming that the world is clear that these actions only seek to “attack our democracies, our sovereignty, and seize our resources, but they will not achieve that in Venezuela.”
In this regard, the minister wondered if the US also bombs small boats detected in the Pacific Ocean, as it has done in the Caribbean. “I question why the supposedly bombed boats in the Caribbean don’t receive, or rather, the interdictions that they do in the Pacific, the same treatment they do in the Caribbean.”
Push for a constituent assembly in Colombia
On Tuesday night the Colombian president called for a citizen mobilization on Friday, October 24, at BolĂvar Square in Bogotá to collect signatures for a Constituent assembly relying in the force of the original Constituent power, the people.
“The time for definitions has arrived, and the one who defines is not Trump, it is the people,” Petro concluded (as reported by Colombia’s public media RTVC).
Colombia’s most recent attempt at a Constituent assembly, initiated by President Gustavo Petro in 2024 and 2025, was blocked by Congress, high courts, and right-wing opposition parties, which represent the oligarchic powers traditionally in control of the country.
President Petro proposed a new constituent assembly, after his significant social reforms—including changes to health, pension, and labor systems—were stalled or rejected by the legislature. Petro argued that the existing institutions had failed to implement the spirit of the 1991 Constitution and that a new assembly was necessary to advance social justice.
Trump Cuts Aid, Threatens Colombia’s Petro After Report of US Killing on Territorial Waters
The main legal reason for the rejection was allegedly Petro’s failure to adhere to the Constitutional process. Article 104 of the Colombian Constitution states that the president can only call for a national popular consultation with the prior approval of the Senate.
However, President Petro insists that the rejected Constituent assembly attempt centers on a “popular mandate” that is being obstructed by corrupt political and economic elites. He has framed the attempt as necessary to fulfill the promise of his 2022 election campaign, asserting that the will of the people must override the institutional blockade.
In most constituent processes around the world, this is a key debate, according to Constitutional experts. However, in many cases, Petro’s argument prevails, as the constituent power relies in the people and not on the institution, a principle referred to as the “original constituent power.”
Special for Orinoco Tribune by staff
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