Colombia recalls US ambassador amid spat with Trump over strikes on alleged drug boats

Feud casts doubt on future of counter-narcotics and security cooperation between two countries, analysts warn

Colombia has recalled its ambassador to Washington amid a furious war of words between the Colombian president, Gustavo Petro, and Donald Trump over deadly US strikes on boats in the Caribbean.

The row took a sharp turn this weekend when Petro accused the US of “murdering” a Colombian fisher in an attack on a vessel in its territorial waters. Petro and his administration said the mid-September strike was a “direct threat to national sovereignty” and that the victim was a “lifelong fisherman” and a “humble human being”.

In response, Trump, who has claimed such attacks are designed to stop drug-smuggling to the US, called Petro an “illegal drug dealer” and vowed to end aid payments to Colombia, one of the largest recipients of US counter-narcotics assistance. He also ordered Petro to “close up” drug cultivation sites, saying if not “the United States will close them up for him, and it won’t be done nicely”. Speaking onboard Air Force One, Trump added that he would announce new tariffs on Colombian goods.

In response, Colombia recalled its ambassador to the US for talks in Bogotá on Monday, while its interior minister, Armando Benedetti, said the remarks were a “threat of invasion or military action against Colombia”. Petro said that Colombia’s five-decade conflict stemmed from “cocaine consumption in the United States” and claimed American contributions had been “meagre and null in recent years”.

Analysts have warned the feud marks one of the most serious breakdowns of relations between the longtime allies, and casts doubt over the future of security and counter-narcotics cooperation between the two countries. The row comes at a critical time for Colombia which is facing its worst security crisis in a decade.

Yet Colombia has not backed down, with the foreign ministry saying Trump’s statements “contain a direct threat to national sovereignty by proposing an illegal intervention in Colombian territory”.

Relations soured at the start of Trump’s second term. Days after Trump’s inauguration Colombia initially refused to accept military flights carrying deportees, prompting the US president to threaten tariffs and sanctions. Months later, Washington revoked Petro’s visa after he urged US soldiers to disobey Trump at a pro-Palestine rally in New York, telling them “disobey the orders of Trump. Obey the orders of humanity.”

In September, the US then declared that Colombia was “failing” to meet its international drug control obligations, decertifying it for the first time in nearly 30 years.

Colombia is the world’s leading producer of cocaine, and its cultivation of the coca bush, the base product of cocaine, reached an all-time high last year, according to the UN. Bogotá argues that the militarized “war on drugs” has failed, and said its own policies have led to record levels of seizures.

Despite the decertification rebuke, the White House said in September that it would continue funding and security assistance to Colombia, calling the partnership “vital to the national interests of the United States”. That appears to have changed this weekend, with Washington now threatening to slash aid.

It was not immediately clear what the cuts might entail, with the US administration having already reduced some funding earlier this year.

According to the Washington Office on Latin America (Wola), a research organisation, Colombia had been due to receive more than $400m in aid at the start of the year, but earlier cuts left it with about a quarter of that. US figures suggest that Colombia received an estimated $230m in the US budget year that ended 30 September – down from more than $700m in recent years.

Elizabeth Dickinson, senior analyst for the Andes region at International Crisis Group, said that the impact of further aid cuts would be “gigantic” – and not merely financial.

“It is an institutional relationship where security forces are operating, on a day-to-day basis, in tandem, in coordination, and constantly sharing information and undertaking operations in a way that is benefiting both countries,” she said.

Dickinson warned that the rupture comes at a perilous moment, with Colombia facing the “worst security crisis it’s seen in probably a decade”, amid a growing threat from armed and criminal groups.

Gimena Sánchez-Garzoli, Wola’s Andes director, said tensions had entered “dangerous territory”, warning that “as Colombia is the most important ally to the US on counternarcotics, it is counterproductive to aggressively attack this ally and to cut further funding.”

Petro, Colombia’s first leftist president, has for weeks criticised the US strikes on boats in the Caribbean, which legal experts have also deemed unlawful.

Naval ships, fighter jets and drones have been deployed for what the US has described as an “armed conflict” with drug cartels. There have been seven US strikes in the region since early September, and at least 32 people have been killed.

Pete Hegseth, the US defense secretary, claimed that one strike last week targeted a boat linked to the National Liberation Army (ELN), a Colombian rebel group, though he provided no evidence. Petro condemned the bombing, saying the boat belonged to a “humble family”.

Survivors were reported from another strike last week, with two men – one Colombian and one Ecuadorian – who US officials were to be repatriated. Trump said US intelligence had confirmed the vessel was “loaded up with mostly fentanyl and other illegal narcotics”. Analysts noted that while Colombia produces cocaine, fentanyl trafficking is largely centred in Mexico.

On Sunday evening, Petro wrote that the US “war on drugs” was merely a “policy to control” Latin America and its resources, arguing that attacks on Venezuela were intended to “secure its oil cheaply”.

On Monday he added that “Colombia actually provides the money and the deaths in the struggle, while the US provides the consumption” and blamed US and European consumption for 300,000 murders in Colombia and 1m deaths in Latin America.

He then posted a video which purported to show the Colombian army seizing nearly half a ton of cocaine at sea north of La Guajira, adding pointedly: “Zero deaths in the operation.”