TheJakartaPost
Please Update your browser
Your browser is out of date, and may not be compatible with our website. A list of the most popular web browsers can be found below.
Just click on the icons to get to the download page.
Popular Reads
Top Results
No results found. Please check your search term and try again
Can't find what you're looking for?
View all search results
Popular Reads
Top Results
No results found. Please check your search term and try again
Can't find what you're looking for?
View all search resultsTrump threatens military operation against Colombia
"Colombia is very sick, too, run by a sick man, who likes making cocaine and selling it to the United States, and he's not going to be doing it very long," Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One, in an apparent reference to Colombia's President Gustavo Petro.
Change text size
Gift Premium Articles
to Anyone
Share the best of The Jakarta Post with friends, family, or colleagues. As a subscriber, you can gift 3 to 5 articles each month that anyone can read—no subscription needed!
Continental rivalry: This combination of pictures created on Jan. 26, shows United States President Donald Trump (left) on Jan. 24 and Colombian President Gustavo Petro on Sept. 9, 2023. (AFP/Mandel Nan/Joaquín Sarmiento)
U
S President Donald Trump on Sunday threatened military action against Colombia's government, telling reporters that such an operation "sounds good to me."
"Colombia is very sick, too, run by a sick man, who likes making cocaine and selling it to the United States, and he's not going to be doing it very long," Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One, in an apparent reference to Colombia's President Gustavo Petro.
Asked directly whether the US would pursue a military operation against the country, Trump answered, "It sounds good to me."
The comments came after the United States captured Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro in an audacious raid and whisked him to New York to face drug-trafficking charges.
On Sunday, Petro rejected threats by Trump who accused him of being a drug trafficker.
Petro rebuffed the accusations saying his "name does not appear in court records."
"Stop slandering me, Mr. Trump." Petro said on the social media platform X.
"That's not how you threaten a Latin American president who emerged from the armed struggle and then from the people of Colombia's fight for Peace."
Petro has harshly criticized the Trump administration's military action in the region and accused Washington of abducting Maduro "without legal basis."
In a later post to X on Sunday Petro added "friends do not bomb."
Meanwhile, Colombian left-wing guerrillas operating on the border with Venezuela vowed to resist Washington's "imperial plans" following the US ouster of Maduro.
The powerful National Liberation Army (ELN), which controls cocaine trafficking routes along Colombia's border with Venezuela, called on "all patriots" to "confront the imperial plans against Venezuela and the peoples of the Global South."
Security experts say the ELN also has rear bases within Venezuela that were tolerated by Maduro.
Dissident members of the defunct FARC rebel army, who vie with the ELN for control of drug-producing regions near Venezuela, also vowed resistance to Trump.
Writing on X, they said they were prepared to spend their "last drop of blood fighting the US empire."
