President Trump threatened military action against Colombia and its “sick” leader after this weekend’s daring capture of dictator Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela — whose acting president has since offered to work with the US in a stunning about-face.
“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 about Colombia’s President Gustavo Petro.
Trump responded that “it sounds good to me” when he was asked directly if the US would carry out military operations against Venezuela’s neighbor.
Colombia in response slammed Trump’s comments as an unacceptable threat against an elected leader.
“It represents an undue interference in the internal affairs of the country, against the norms of international law,” the Foreign Ministry said in a statement late Sunday.
The Trump administration imposed sanctions on Petro, his family and a member of his government in October over accusations of his country’s involvement in the global drug trade — specifically cocaine.
Trump’s warning comes after Saturday’s capture of Maduro — who is due to appear in court in New York City on Monday on federal drug-trafficking and other charges — following a months-long campaign carrying out airstrikes on alleged drug smuggling boats in the Caribbean.
He later expanded the operations to also target suspected drug trafficking ships in the eastern Pacific that came from Colombia.
“He’s not going to be doing it for very long,” Trump said of Petro on Sunday. “He has cocaine mills and cocaine factories. He’s not going to be doing it.”
Meanwhile, Venezuela’s acting President Delcy Rodriguez said in a shocking change of tone that her country was ready to work with the US — after she earlier criticized the raid on Saturday as an illegal grab for the country’s national resources.
“We invite the US government to collaborate with us on an agenda of cooperation oriented towards shared development within the framework of international law to strengthen lasting community coexistence,” Rodriguez, a socialist, said.
“President Donald Trump, our peoples and our region deserve peace and dialogue, not war.” Rodriguez, who also serves as Venezuela’s oil minister, is considered the most pragmatic member of Maduro’s inner circle and Trump had said she was willing to work with the US.
She has maintained publicly that the arrests of Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, were a “kidnapping” and said Maduro remains the president.
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