Trump cuts financial aid to Colombia, accusing leader of failing to stop drug trafficking

US PRESIDENT DONALD Trump has said he is cutting aid payments to Colombia, accusing its leader of failing to prevent the production of drugs like cocaine.

He also flagged plans to increase tariffs on Colombia, while around the same time, the Pentagon confirmed it had attacked an alleged Colombian rebel group vessel off the coast of South America. 

Trump announced yesterday that federal payments to Colombia would be slashed, accusing the Colombian President Gustavo Petro of “doing nothing” to stop the production of drugs within the country. 

In a social media post, Trump warned Petro that he “better close up” drug operations “or the United States will close them up for him, and it won’t be done nicely”.

Colombia, one of the US’s closest Southern American allies, received an estimated $230m from the US in the past fiscal year, a drop from recent years that exceeded $700m, due to the Trump administration’s cuts to foreign assistance programme USAID. It is currently unclear if all of these payments will be slashed. 

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Later in the day, Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One that Colombia has “no fight against drugs” and “they are a drug manufacturing machine” with “a lunatic” for a president.

He further added that he would announce new tariffs on Colombia today. Colombia currently pays 10% tariffs on most imports to the United States, which is the baseline rate Trump has imposed on many countries.  

In posts made to X yesterday afternoon, Petro rejected Trump’s accusations and defended his government’s efforts to fight drug trafficking in Colombia, the world’s largest exporter of cocaine.

“Trying to promote peace in Colombia is not being a drug trafficker,” Petro wrote and accused Trump of being “rude and ignorant” towards the country. The Colombian president also described the US’s anti-drug policy, commonly known as the War on Drugs, as a “failed strategy” and as “only an excuse to control Latin America”. 

The Colombian Foreign Ministry described Trump’s comments as a “direct threat to national sovereignty by proposing an illegal intervention in Colombian territory.” 

Meanwhile, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced a US strike on Friday on a vessel affiliated with Colombia’s National Liberation Army, or ELN , which killed three crew members onboard.

Hegseth said the vessel was traveling in international waters in an area under the purview of the US Southern Command, which oversees US military operations in Latin America, though he did not specify where.

With additional reporting by AFP and Press Association

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