“Colombia is very sick, too, run by a sick man, who likes making cocaine and selling it to the United States, and he’s not going to be doing it very long,” Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One, in an apparent reference to Colombia’s President Gustavo Petro.
Asked directly whether the U.S. would pursue a military operation against the country, Trump answered, “It sounds good to me.”
The comments came after the United States captured Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro in an audacious raid and whisked him to New York to face drug-trafficking charges.
Petro on Sunday rejected threats by Trump who also accused him of being a drug trafficker. He rebuffed the allegations saying his “name does not appear in court records.”
“Stop slandering me, Mr. Trump.” Petro said on the social media platform X.
“That’s not how you threaten a Latin American president who emerged from the armed struggle and then from the people of Colombia’s fight for Peace.”
Petro has harshly criticized the Trump administration’s military action in the region and accused Washington of abducting Maduro “without legal basis.”
In a later post to X on Sunday Petro added “friends do not bomb.”
Colombia’s foreign ministry called the US president’s threats “unacceptable interference” and demanded “respect.”
Colombia and the United States are key military and economic allies in the region, but their relations have been strained.
Since the start of Trump’s second term, the two leaders have regularly clashed over issues such as tariffs and migration policy.
