As US military activity ramps up in the Caribbean and the Pacific, Colombia’s president alleged the Trump administration’s pressure campaign on Venezuela is extra about accessing the South American nation’s oil than combating drug trafficking.
“(Oil) is at the heart of the matter,” Gustavo Petro instructed NCS in an unique interview, noting that Venezuela has what are thought-about the largest oil reserves in the world.
“So, that’s a negotiation about oil. I believe that is (US President Donald) Trump’s logic. He’s not thinking about the democratization of Venezuela, let alone the narco-trafficking,” he continued, including that Venezuela is not thought-about a serious drug producer and that solely a comparatively small portion of the international medicine commerce flows by the nation.
Petro has been at odds with Trump since he returned to the White House. In the previous 12 months, the Colombian chief has harshly criticized the Trump administration’s immigration insurance policies, its assist for Israel and its navy exercise round Latin America.
Colombian President Gustavo Petro is interviewed by NCS on November 25. – NCS
On Tuesday, he accused the US of making an attempt to impose its will on its neighbors, evaluating its actions to imperialism. “The United States cannot be considered an empire, but one of the nations among others,” the president mentioned.
NCS has reached out to the White House and the US State Department for remark.
Asked if he had a message to the American folks, Petro replied, “My message is the one they give to all members of the United States special forces: Your function, as they say in the oaths, is to fight against oppression. I repeated that on the streets in the United States, and it also cost me,” Petro mentioned.
He seemed to be referring to the US State Department revoking his visa at the conclusion of the UN General Assembly in September after he publicly referred to as on American troopers to disobey Trump and “not to point their rifles at humanity.”
It’s one in every of the many actions the Trump administration has taken towards the Colombian chief in current months.
In October, the US Treasury sanctioned Petro, accusing him of taking part in a “role in the global illicit drug trade,” a declare the Colombian chief has rejected.
The sanctions had been imposed days after Trump mentioned he would halt all US payments and subsidies to Colombia, claiming Petro “does nothing to stop” the manufacturing of medicine in his nation.
Petro defended his efforts to battle the drug commerce, telling NCS that his authorities had seized extra cocaine than every other in historical past. “So much so that in recent years, I have managed to ensure that the growth in crops, which is stagnating, is far surpassed by the growth in seizures,” he mentioned.
Asked why Trump hadn’t acknowledged this, Petro mentioned: “Because of pride. Because he thinks I’m a subversive thug, a terrorist, and things like that, simply because I was a member of the M-19,” a Colombian guerrilla motion energetic in the Nineteen Seventies and Eighties.
Petro additionally instructed NCS that he believes the US is evaluating him to Venezuela’s President Nicolás Maduro.
Colombian President Gustavo Petro is interviewed by NCS on November 25. – NCS
His feedback come a day after the US designated the Cartel de los Soles, an alleged drug trafficking group that the US has claimed Maduro leads, as a overseas terrorist group. Venezuela has denied the claims, and consultants say the phrase is extra an outline of allegedly corrupt authorities officers than an organized crime group.
While Maduro has an issue with democracy, Petro mentioned he is not that satisfied about the Venezuelan president’s drug trafficking hyperlinks.
“The problem of Maduro is called democracy … the lack of democracy,” Petro instructed NCS, including that “no Colombian investigation … has shown us a relationship between Colombian drug trafficking and Maduro.”
According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), Venezuela is not a cocaine-producing country. Of the 3,700 tons of coca produced worldwide, greater than 2,500 tons come from Colombia, whereas Venezuela doesn’t seem on manufacturing maps, in accordance with the UNODC, which mentioned: “The majority of Colombian cocaine is being trafficked north along the Pacific coast.”
Investigators from the US Drug Enforcement Agency reached related conclusions, writing of their annual report printed in March that 84% of the cocaine seized in the US comes from Colombia.
Over the weekend, Colombian information program Noticias Caracol reported alleged hyperlinks between Colombian officers and dissidents of the now-defunct insurgent group FARC. According to the report, senior navy and intelligence officers shared delicate intelligence with the armed teams and suggested them about secretly purchase weapons and evade navy scrutiny.
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro speaks throughout a government-organized civic-military rally in Caracas, Venezuela, Tuesday, November 25. – Ariana Cubillos/AP
Petro has denied the allegations however acknowledged to NCS on Tuesday that ties between officers and drug traffickers have existed for years, even earlier than he took workplace.
A spokesperson for the US State Department mentioned it is conscious of the current reviews and urged Petro and different Colombian establishments to “thoroughly investigate these allegations and take all appropriate actions.”
Colombia has lengthy been Washington’s most dependable ally in South America on safety and protection. In 2022, the Biden administration designated the Andean nation as a “major non-NATO ally.”
Despite current tensions at the prime, US-Colombia relations stay intact.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has made clear publicly that the administration’s points are with Petro, not the establishments in Colombia.
“Our relationships with the people of Colombia, the economic sector of Colombia, the majority of people in politics in Colombia, and their institutions, in particular their defense institutions, are strong and enduring, and they’re going to be strong and enduring long after this individual is no longer the president there,” Rubio beforehand mentioned.
NCS’s Jennifer Hansler contributed reporting
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