“Daniel Garcรญa-Peรฑa, the Colombian ambassador to the United States of America, was summoned by President Gustavo Petro for consultations and is now in Bogotรก. The national government will inform about the decisions taken in the following hours,” the Colombian diplomacy said in a statement on Monday.
The dispute between the US and Colombia flared up after Petro criticized US attacks on vessels in the southern Caribbean, which claimed dozens of lives in recent weeks, the agency recalls Reuters. The Trump administration says, without providing evidence, that they are only targeting drug cartels, but Petro has said that innocent Colombians have died as well. US attacks on vessels are also condemned by legal experts and human rights activists.
Petro specifically condemned the latest reported attack, which U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said targeted a boat owned by the left-wing National Liberation Army militia. Three people died in that attack, and Colombia’s president has publicly denied that the boat that was hit belonged to militants. According to him, it was owned by an “ordinary family”.
Trump called Petro an “illegal drug lord” for his public statement on Sunday, a move similar to his handling of the conflict with Venezuela. Nicolรกs Maduro, the leader there, has been consistently identified by the Trump administration as the leader of the Tren de Aragua drug cartel. The Colombian government condemned Trump’s claim as offensive.
The US president also said he would end all financial aid to Colombia and unveil new tariffs on the South American country on Monday. It is not clear what kind of financial aid he was referring to, because although Colombia used to be one of the largest recipients of US aid in the Western Hemisphere, this flow of US money ended this year with the abolition of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). As for tariffs, Trump imposed a base rate of 10% on Colombian goods in the spring.
The Colombian Ministry of Foreign Affairs has promised to provide international support for Peter. The accusations of involvement in the drug trade against him are, at first glance, quite absurd. Petro first came to public attention as a senator when he exposed the links between right-wing militias, drug traffickers and corrupt politicians. Petro has also promised in the past to tame coca cultivation in the country through social and military intervention, but this strategy has not yet brought significant success.
“Mr. Trump, Colombia has never been rude to the United States… but you are rude and ignorant to Colombia. Because I am not a businessman, I am certainly not a drug trafficker. There is no greed in my heart,” Petro himself responded to Trump’s insults.
