The president of Colombia, Gustavo Petro, asked the United States to respect the “sovereignty” of his country, in response to a statement by President Donald Trump in which he does not rule out attacking Colombian soil to stop drug trafficking.
“Do not threaten our sovereignty, because you will wake up the Jaguar. Attacking our sovereignty is declaring war, do not damage two centuries of diplomatic relations,” said the president in the midst of the worst crisis between Bogotá and Washington that broke decades of friendship.
The above after Trump warned that any country that produces and traffics drugs to the US, including Colombia, “is subject to attack.”
“I have heard that Colombia produces cocaine. They have manufacturing plants. And then they sell us cocaine. Anyone who does that and sells it to our country is subject to attacks, not necessarily just Venezuela,” said the Republican.
Initially, Gustavo Petro invited Trump to Colombia to teach him how to destroy cocaine laboratories, after he warned that anyone who produces and traffics drugs to the United States “is subject to attacks.”
“Come Mr. Trump to Colombia, I invite you, to participate in the destruction of the 9 daily laboratories that we do so that cocaine does not reach the United States.“Petro stated in his X account.
Petro, a regular critic of United States operations in the Caribbean Sea and in the Eastern Pacific against drug trafficking, in which at least 21 boats have been sunk and 82 crew members have died.He added that, “without missiles”, his Government, which began in August 2022, has destroyed thousands of cocaine production laboratories.
“Without missiles I have destroyed 18,400 laboratories in my government, come with me and I will show you how they are destroyed, one laboratory every 40 minutes, but do not threaten our sovereignty, because the Jaguar will wake up,” Petro added.
The Colombian president, whose US visa was canceled last September and in October was included by the Treasury Department of that country on the list of the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC)), known as the Clinton List, after being accused of being a “drug trafficking leader,” insisted today that this treatment is a slander by Trump.
“You already slandered me, don’t continue there. If a country has helped stop thousands of tons of cocaine so that North Americans do not consume it, it is Colombia,” concluded the president, whose country is the world’s largest producer of cocaine.
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