Trump Says of Cocaine Facilities in Colombia: Petro ‘Better Close Them Up Fast’

U.S. President Donald Trump issued a fresh warning that Colombian President Gustavo Petro must curb Colombia’s cocaine production, as U.S. forces ratchet up pressure against neighboring Venezuela over drug trafficking.

During a press conference to announce a new U.S. warship program and broader shipbuilding efforts, Trump said that Petro “has to watch, because, you know, he’s got drug factories.”

“They make cocaine in Colombia. And he’s no friend of the United States,” Trump added of his Colombian counterpart.

Petro and Trump have traded barbs in recent months, as U.S. forces have amassed in the waters around South America and have conducted numerous lethal attacks on drug boats in the region.

This past week, after Trump announced a U.S. blockade of sanctioned oil tankers sailing in and out of Venezuela and accused the South American nation of stealing U.S. land, oil, and other assets, Petro suggested that the southwest portion of the United States was invaded and stolen and should therefore be up for negotiation.

“Let’s make a pact, and they’ll give us back what they took from us. And what they think we’ve taken from them—which we haven’t taken anything—well, let’s put it on the negotiating table through dialogue and face-to-face, not with missiles raining down on the poor,” Petro said.

Asked to respond to Petro’s comments about the Southwest being stolen, Trump said he loves the people of Colombia but that the Colombian president is a “very bad guy” and a “troublemaker.”

Trump said Petro should watch himself “because he makes cocaine, and they send it into the United States of America from Colombia.”

The U.S. president said he’s aware of at least three major cocaine production sites in Colombia.

“We know where they are. He’d better close them up fast,” Trump said.

The ongoing U.S. military build-up around South America is known as Operation Southern Spear.

While the majority of U.S. warships and military forces supporting the operation appear to be concentrated in the Caribbean Sea near Venezuela, most of the reported strikes on drug boats have taken place on the other side of the South American continent, in the eastern Pacific.

At least 105 individuals who U.S. officials said were confirmed drug traffickers have been killed in the boat strikes.

In his remarks this past week, Petro said the majority of individuals killed in the boat strikes have been Colombians.

In October, the U.S. government repatriated a Colombian national and an Ecuadorian national who survived the sinking of their semi-submersible vessel.

This past fall, the Trump administration moved to decertify Colombia’s counter-narcotics initiatives and sanction Petro for failing to sufficiently curb drug trafficking through his country. Petro, in response, said his government has led record-setting cocaine seizures.

“My government did not increase cocaine. It did the opposite,” Petro said on social media in October. “My government has seized more cocaine than in the whole history of the world.”

The U.S. State Department has stated that the Petro government has dramatically lowered crop eradication efforts, allowing a rise in coca cultivation and its subsequent processing into cocaine.

Petro has also criticized the U.S. military campaign against drug boats. In November, he ordered the suspension of counter-narcotic intelligence sharing efforts with the United States for as long as the military strikes targeting drug trafficking continue.