Petro accuses US of lies and aggression over Caribbean strikes: Video
Colombian President Gustavo Petro has sharply criticised the United States, accusing President Donald Trump and his allies of lying about the country’s anti-drug operations in the Caribbean and Pacific.
Speaking at the III Social Summit of the Peoples of Latin America and the Caribbean in Santa Marta on Saturday, Petro condemned what he described as Washington’s use of the drug war as a political weapon.
“Liar Trump and your lying friends, liar Mr Rubio. Those you are killing are not drug traffickers,” Petro declared, referring to US operations in the region. He claimed that the real drug traffickers had long moved into political and financial circles. “The drug traffickers have gone, through their politicians, to the offices in Miami to speak with Mr Rubio’s senators, to ask that they bomb here as well, to ask that they also remove the president of the Republic elected by popular vote, to try to humiliate us,” he said.
According to the Colombian government, Petro also recalled the death of a fisherman killed in a US military strike in the Caribbean last year, rejecting claims that the victim was involved in illegal activities. “No one can say that this fisherman, a poor father of a girl, was a drug trafficker. I oppose that,” he added, denouncing what he described as the human cost of foreign intervention.
The president further linked Washington’s regional actions to wider global power imbalances, warning that “what we are seeing in Gaza will happen in the South, in the continents of working and poor people, in those of us who do not hold world power.” He has been one of the most vocal leaders in Latin America to denounce Israel’s actions in Gaza, having suspended coal exports to the country for humanitarian and moral reasons.
This story is written and edited by the Global South World team, you can contact us here.
