WASHINGTON: The United States announced on Sunday another strike against what it called a drug-running boat, this time attacking an alleged Colombian leftist rebel vessel in an apparent expansion of a US military operation off the coasts of South America.
Word of the attack from Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth came as President Donald Trump said the United States is halting financial aid to Colombia, accusing its president of condoning the production of drugs. This took embattled relations between two longstanding allies to a new low.
The United States has had warships deployed in the Caribbean off Venezuela since August and has attacked at least six boats it said were running drugs toward the United States, killing at least 27 people so far.
Experts question the legality of attacking such boats in international waters without trying to intercept them or arrest the crew members and bring them to trial. The flotilla has created acute tension with Venezuela amid fears the ultimate goal of the operation might be to oust leftist President Nicolas Maduro, who Washington says leads a drug cartel.
In a strike carried out on Friday, Hegseth said US forces attacked a vessel he said was affiliated with Colombia’s National Liberation Army, a leftist guerrilla group known as ELN in Spanish. Three crew members were killed, he said.
Hegseth said the vessel was travelling in international waters in an area under the purview of the US Southern Command, which oversees US military operations in Latin America. He did not specify where. Colombia has both Caribbean and Pacific coasts.
Trump has repeatedly clashed with President Gustavo Petro, a former guerrilla leader who has been highly critical of the US naval deployment. As recently as Saturday, Petro accused the United States of murder in the death of a Colombian fisherman killed in a US strike in September.
The harsh verbal exchanges have taken relations between the two historic allies to their lowest point in decades. Until now, Colombia has received more US aid than any other country in South America — $740 million in 2023, according to US government figures.
On Sunday, Trump lashed out at Petro, saying he is doing nothing to stop cocaine production despite “large-scale payments and subsidies from the USA.” “AS OF TODAY, THESE PAYMENTS, OR ANY OTHER FORM OF PAYMENT, OR SUBSIDIES, WILL NO LONGER BE MADE” to Colombia, Trump said on his Truth Social platform, adding that Petro is “strongly encouraging the massive production of drugs.” In the post, Trump repeatedly misspelt the name of the country as Columbia.
Petro responded to Trump’s announcement by saying the US leader is being “fooled” by his advisers. “I recommend that he read Colombia well and determine where the drug traffickers are and where the democrats are,” Petro wrote on X.
Last month, Washington announced it had decertified Colombia as an ally in the fight against drugs. Colombia hit back by halting arms purchases from the United States, its biggest military partner.
The United States last month revoked Petro’s US visa after he spoke at a pro-Palestinian rally in New York on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly. In his post on Sunday, Trump also appeared to hint at some kind of US intervention in Colombia, although he did not elaborate.
“Petro, a low-rated and very unpopular leader, with a fresh mouth toward America, better close up these killing fields immediately, or the United States will close them up for him, and it won’t be done nicely,” Trump wrote. Since coming to power in 2022, Petro has championed a paradigm shift in the US-led war on drugs, away from forced eradication to focus on the social problems that fuel drug trafficking.
Under his watch, cultivation of coca, the raw material of cocaine, has increased by about 70 per cent, according to Colombian government and United Nations estimates.
