Screenshot of a CBS video showing an aerial view of a small boat destroyed in the eighth strike by the US empire on so-called drug boats since September 2. Photo: CBS.
Caracas (OrinocoTribune.com)—The president of the US empire, Donald Trump, has announced the suspension of all financial aid to Colombia and threatened “very serious action” against President Gustavo Petro, whom he called a “thug.” The threats came after Trump accused the country of massive drug production.
“He’s a bully and a bad guy,” Trump said this Wednesday, October 22, referring to President Petro. “We have just stopped, as of today, all payments going to Colombia,” he continued, during a meeting with North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s (NATO) Secretary General Mark Rutte in the White House.
In his latest attack against Colombia, Trump claimed that cocaine is produced in “factories” in the country and that “they grow all kinds of crap, drugs, bad drugs that come into the US.” He claimed that this trafficking is generally carried out through México, hinting, according to some analysts, a possible new target for the US empire’s regime change policy in the region. Coincidentally, all three nations the US colony has been targeting under the guise of the so-called “war on drugs” have progressive governments.
Trump on Colombian President Petro:
He is a thug, he is making a lot of drugs.
They have cocaine factories.
He better watch it or we will take very serious action against him and his country. pic.twitter.com/hdQNYcPXgo
— Clash Report (@clashreport) October 22, 2025
The hostility of his statements further escalated into a direct threat. “He’d better watch himself,” the US colonial ruler said, referring to President Petro. “We will take very serious action against him and his country.”
This comes after the White House decertified Colombia in September—which removed it from the list of countries collaborating in the fight against drugs and trafficking—and after Trump joked on social media about a spelling mistake of his, having written “Columbia” instead of Colombia in his first threatening message to the South American nation on Monday.
President Petro wrote last week on social media that Colombia has “reduced the growth rate of coca leaf crops to almost zero. Past administrations saw almost 100% annual growth. Today, half of the total coca leaf crop area has been abandoned for three years.”
The Petro administration has intensified its efforts to reduce coca cultivation by 40% and convert 50,000 small coca farmers to legal crops by 2026, in a three-year strategy announced in 2023. Colombia set a new record in 2024, seizing 960 tons of cocaine and cocaine base: 14% more than the previous year, according to official figures. However, between 2022 and 2023—before Petro’s arrival—the area of land dedicated to coca cultivation had increased by 10%, reaching 253,000 hectares, according to a report by the Integrated Illicit Crop Monitoring System (SIMCI).
Extrajudicial killings
Just minutes before Trump’s remarks, the war secretary of the US empire, Pete Hegseth, announced the latest murder of two civilians by the US imperial military in the Pacific Ocean.
In the new assassination rampage by the empire, allegedly in its so-called “war on drugs,” Secretary Hegseth reported a new strike against a small boat allegedly transporting drugs, leaving two dead, this time in the Pacific off the coast of Colombia. This is the first such attack in that area since this latest controversial campaign began.
The attack allegedly occurred Tuesday night, and was initially disclosed to a US imperial news outlet CBS. Later, Hegseth confirmed the strike on social media. “Yesterday, at the direction of President Trump, the Department of War conducted a lethal kinetic attack against a vessel operated by a designated terrorist organization that was engaged in narcotics trafficking in the eastern Pacific,” he wrote, almost copy-pasting the same vague messages provided in early strikes regarding the alleged reasoning behind the murders.
Hegseth stated that the incident left two dead, naming them as so-called “narcoterrorists.” He also attempted to justify the military action based on intelligence reports linking the attacked boat to “illegal narcotics smuggling.” No names, illegal drug information, precise date, time, or location have been provided by the US colonial regime about the murders.
This is the eighth deadly attack carried out by the US imperial military under the latest “war on drugs reloaded” campaign. Since last August, Washington’s military deployment has totaled more than 30 murders. Human rights organizations, legal experts from the US empire and international groups, and even US colonial congresspeople have questioned the disproportionate nature of the attacks, considering them summary executions in violation of international law.
The last attack by the US empire on a vessel occurred on October 16, resulting in two deaths and two survivors: one Colombian and the other Ecuadorian, also accused of transporting drugs, who were repatriated to their countries. The Ecuadorian national was later taken into custody and released after no evidence of links to drug trafficking was found.
Regional and Petro’s response
These statements, and the announcement of the end of the aid, come amid escalating tensions between Bogotá and Washington over the Trump administration’s war on drugs, which has led to the strikes and the deaths in the Caribbean Sea and the eastern Pacific, so far murdering and injuring nationals of Colombia, Ecuador, Trinidad and Tobago, and Venezuela.
In response to Trump’s defamatory attacks, President Petro wrote on Wednesday that he will defend himself before the US empire’s courts against the “slander” leveled against him. “I will always be against genocide and assassinations by powerful countries in the Caribbean,” he said, once more condemning the US empire’s military attacks.
The Colombian government has described the actions of the US empire as “murders,” and following the latest attack, President Petro denounced the officials of Donald Trump’s administration as having “committed murder and violated our sovereignty in territorial waters,” after the death of fisherman Alejandro Carranza was confirmed in the previous strike by the US colony.
“When they need our help to fight drug trafficking, [the people of the US empire] will have it,” the Colombian president added on social media. “We will fight drug traffickers with the states that want our help.”
The Venezuelan government has also condemned the US empire’s military deployment as a threat to the country and the region as a whole, particularly taking into consideration that it has occurred amid a growing threatening rhetoric against President Nicolás Maduro. The Venezuelan statement emphasized that the objective of the US empire remains regime change and the seizing of Venezuela’s natural resources and reserves.
Special for Orinoco Tribune by staff
OT/JRE/AU
