US targets Colombian president with sanctions over drug trafficking claims
Donald Trump, President of the US (photo: Getty Images)
On Friday, October 24, the US imposed sanctions on Colombian President Gustavo Petro and his inner circle, citing drug trafficking, according to the Trump administration.
Specifically, the US Treasury announced sanctions against President Petro, his wife and son, as well as the head of Colombia’s Ministry of Interior, Armando Benedetti.
“Since President Gustavo Petro came to power, cocaine production in Colombia has exploded to the highest rate in decades, flooding the United States and poisoning Americans,” said US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.
It should be noted that the Trump administration accuses the Colombian president of refusing to stop the flow of drugs into the US.
Earlier this week, US President Donald Trump called Petro a leader of illegal drug trafficking after Petro accused Washington of committing a killing and claimed that the US struck a boat off the coast of Venezuela, which belonged to a humble family, not a rebel group.
President Petro of Colombia responded that effective counter-narcotics efforts over decades had led him to take this measure against the very society they had helped rid of cocaine use, acknowledging that it was a complete paradox, but that there would be no step back and no kneeling.
Reuters notes that the sanctions place Petro on a short list that includes leaders of Russia, Venezuela, and North Korea.
As for Colombia’s Minister of Interior, he said in an interview that he was punished merely for stating that Petro is not a drug trafficker and that the sanctions proved that the US war on drugs was a fiction.
A month earlier, at the end of September, the US revoked Petro’s visa following his participation in protests in New York, during which he called on American troops to ignore Trump’s orders.
