President Donald Trump accused the Colombian president of being an “illegal” drug dealer and announced he was slashing U.S. funding to the country in a social media tirade that misspelled Colombia’s name multiple times.
On Sunday morning, Trump raged on Truth Social that President Gustavo Petro, of “Columbia,” is an “illegal drug leader” encouraging drug production across “Columbia.”
Within an hour, Trump appeared to realize the spelling errors and deleted the post. He followed up with a nearly identical, more grammatically polished rant, attacking the “low-rated, unpopular leader” Petro for allowing drugs to become “the biggest business in Colombia.”
“Petro does nothing to stop it, despite large scale payments and subsidies from the USA that are nothing more than a long term rip off of America. AS OF TODAY, THESE PAYMENTS, OR ANY OTHER FORM OF PAYMENT, OR SUBSIDIES, WILL NO LONGER BE MADE TO COLOMBIA,” the president wrote.
“The purpose of this drug production is the sale of massive amounts of product into the United States, causing death, destruction, and havoc.”
Trump then threatened direct U.S. intervention if Petro fails to shut down the so-called “killing fields.”
“The United States will close them up for him, and it won’t be done nicely,” he added.
Petro fired back on X, saying Trump was being “deceived” by his advisers.
“The main enemy that drug trafficking had in Colombia in the 21st century was the one who exposed its ties to Colombia’s political power. That was me,” he wrote. “I recommend that Trump take a good look at Colombia and determine which side the narcos are on, and which side the democrats are on.”
Trump está engañado de sus logias y asesores. El principal enemigo que tuvo el narcotráfico en Colombia, fue en el siglo XXI, el que le descubrió sus relaciones con el poder político de Colombia. Ese fuí yo.Le recomiendo a Trump leer bien a Colombia y determinar en qué parte…
— Gustavo Petro (@petrogustavo) October 19, 2025
This marks the latest escalation between the two leaders. Earlier Sunday, Petro accused the U.S. of killing a civilian and violating international law following an American military strike in Caribbean waters.
Trump had announced the strike in a Saturday afternoon Truth Social post, claiming he had personally overseen the destruction of a drug boat in international waters.
“It was my great honor to destroy a very large DRUG-CARRYING SUBMARINE that was navigating towards the United States on a well known narcotrafficking transit route,” he wrote. A video attached to the post purportedly shows the strike in action.
Trump noted that four people were on board, two of whom were killed. The surviving two will be returned to Ecuador and Colombia, their countries of origin.
The president began ordering lethal strikes last month on what he claims are drug-smuggling vessels traveling from Venezuela. So far, 29 people have been killed, but U.S. officials have offered little to no detail on who was on board or what intelligence justified the attacks.
This isn’t the first time Petro has condemned Trump’s policies as criminal. Last month, after Trump was compared to Hitler in a fiery United Nations speech by the Colombian president, the U.S. State Department moved to cancel Petro’s visa. Petro had also urged Americans to “disobey” Trump.
“When we believed it was only the property of Hitler, Trump does not speak of democracy, he does not speak of the climate crisis, he does not speak of life—he only threatens, kills, and lets tens of thousands be killed,” Petro said.
Trump’s Sunday posts come after his recent more quiet determination that the U.S. is now in an “armed conflict” with drug cartels. The cartels have been designated by the administration as “non-state armed groups” whose actions “constitute an armed attack against the United States.”
It also follows amid mounting international skepticism about the strikes—including calls for Trump to be criminally investigated over them.
The first attack, in September, killed 11 people in international waters and has been described by critics as a serious violation of human rights, possibly amounting to a war crime.
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