Bogotá, Colombia (NCS) — 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 significant drug producer and that solely a comparatively small portion of the world medication commerce flows by the nation.
Petro has been at odds with Trump since he returned to the White House. In the previous yr, the Colombian chief has harshly criticized the Trump administration’s immigration insurance policies, its assist for Israel and its army exercise round Latin America.
On Tuesday, he accused the US of attempting 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 stated.
In response to Petro’s feedback, a US State Department spokesperson stated the Trump administration stays “firm in its counter-drug operations in the Caribbean and its commitment to protecting Americans from the (Venezuelan President Nicolás) Maduro regime’s deadly poison.”
NCS has additionally reached out to the White House for remark.
Asked if he had a message to the American individuals, 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 stated.
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 known as on American troopers to disobey Trump and “not to point their rifles at humanity.”
It’s considered one of the many actions the Trump administration has taken in opposition to the Colombian chief in latest 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 have been imposed days after Trump stated he would halt all US payments and subsidies to Colombia, claiming Petro “does nothing to stop” the manufacturing of medication in his nation.
Petro defended his efforts to battle the drug commerce, telling NCS that his authorities had seized extra cocaine than some 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 stated.
Asked why Trump hadn’t acknowledged this, Petro stated: “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 lively in the Nineteen Seventies and Nineteen Eighties.
Petro additionally instructed NCS that he believes the US is evaluating him to Maduro.
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 specialists 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 stated 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 response to the UNODC, which stated: “The majority of Colombian cocaine is being trafficked north along the Pacific coast.”
Investigators from the US Drug Enforcement Agency reached comparable 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 army and intelligence officers shared delicate intelligence with the armed teams and suggested them about tips on how to secretly purchase weapons and evade army scrutiny.
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 stated it is conscious of the latest stories 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 latest 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 stated.
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NCS’s Jennifer Hansler contributed reporting