President Gustavo Petro defends drug war policy and insists he will not be a ‘puppet president’ of Washington.
Colombia has halted arms purchases from the United States, its biggest military partner, over Washington’s claim that the South American country is failing to halt cocaine trafficking.
Colombian Interior Minister Armando Benedetti announced the move on Tuesday, as President Gustavo Petro accused the US of seeking to “participate” in the country’s domestic politics and looking for a “puppet president” ahead of elections next year.
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“From this moment on … weapons will not be purchased from the United States,” Benedetti told Blu Radio in an interview on Tuesday.
US President Donald Trump on Monday decertified Colombia as an ally in the fight against drugs, accusing the country of allowing cocaine production to surge to “all-time records”.
Though seen as a largely symbolic move, it marked another blow to Washington’s alliance with Bogota after the sides clashed earlier this year over the deportation of undocumented migrants to the Latin American country.
It is unclear how the delisting will affect the millions of dollars provided by Washington each year to Bogota to bolster its fight against drug cartels and leftist fighters funded by cocaine trafficking.
US assistance for anti-narcotics efforts in Colombia amounts to some $380m a year.
In a series of posts on X on Tuesday, Petro, a former leftist fighter, defended his drug war policy, insisting that his government had seized more cocaine than previous administrations.
In a statement during a meeting of ministers, Petro also said Colombia “will not be blackmailed” by the US government, adding that he “is not concerned about the US aid”.
“We are the ones who help them, because the problem is theirs, not ours,” Petro said, suggesting that Colombia’s military would end its dependence on US “handouts”.
Responding to US Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s characterisation of the Colombian leader as “erratic” in the fight against drugs, Petro said bombing civilian boats in Latin American waters was “truly erratic”.
He was referring to Trump’s decision to strike two Venezuelan boats that he claimed were being operated by drug cartels and en route to the US.
“Most of the cocaine that travels by sea leaves in containers from the ports, and goes on large ships and not in speedboats,” Petro wrote on X.
Petro added that he would not allow his nation to “kneel” to US interests or allow peasants who grow coca to get “beaten up”.
Since coming to power in 2022, Petro has championed a paradigm shift in the US-led so-called war on drugs, focusing on addressing social problems that fuel drug trafficking in favour of eradication.
On his watch, the cultivation of coca, the main ingredient in cocaine, has increased by about 70 percent, according to the Colombian government and the United Nations.
The amount of land dedicated to cultivating coca almost tripled to a record 253,000 hectares (about 625,200 acres) in the decade up to 2023, according to the latest report by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime.
Writing on X, Petro blamed the figures on “the increase in [cocaine] consumption worldwide, especially in Europe”.
“The world needs to change its anti-drug policy because it has failed,” he said, adding that cocaine consumption in the US had only stabilised “because they switched en masse to fentanyl consumption, which is 30 times more deadly”.
Petro has repeatedly clashed with Trump, attracting his ire by denying US extradition requests as well as criticising his immigration crackdown and efforts to combat drug trafficking in neighbouring Venezuela.
He has also criticised US ally Israel over its war on Gaza, cutting diplomatic ties with the country in 2024.