August M
Colombia’s president has issued a stark warning that relations with Washington have entered a dangerous phase, saying recent comments from the White House point to a genuine risk of military action.
In remarks to the BBC, Gustavo Petro framed the moment as part of a broader pattern in how the United States treats countries in Latin America.
Rising tensions
Petro said there is now a “real threat” of US military action against Colombia after President Donald Trump made repeated threats, including telling his Colombian counterpart to “watch his ass”.
He accused Washington of behaving like an “empire” and warned that the US risked shifting from “dominating the world” to becoming “isolated from the world”.
Trump’s remarks came after US military action in Venezuela, which Petro said had heightened anxiety across the region.
Immigration anger
Petro directed some of his strongest criticism at US immigration enforcement, accusing Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents of operating like “Nazi brigades”.
He said ICE had “reached the point where it no longer only persecutes Latin Americans in the streets, which for us is an affront, but it also kills United States citizens”.
The comments followed a sharp expansion of ICE operations under Trump, which the administration says are aimed at tackling crime and undocumented immigration. The BBC has approached the White House for comment.
Phone call fallout
The Colombian and US presidents spoke by phone on Wednesday evening, after which Trump said he would meet Petro at the White House in the “near future”.
Writing on his Truth Social platform, Trump described the call as a “Great Honour”. A Colombian official initially said the conversation marked a dramatic improvement in tone.
Petro told the BBC, however, that relations had not meaningfully changed. He said the call lasted just under an hour, “most of it occupied by me”, and focused on drug trafficking, Venezuela and US policy in Latin America.
Regional fears
Petro linked the threats against Colombia to what he described as US efforts to secure fossil fuel interests abroad.
“If the US had not pulled out of the Paris Agreement… there would be no wars, there would be a much more democratic and peaceful relationship with the world. And South America,” he said.
After Trump’s comments, protests were held across Colombia in the name of sovereignty and democracy.
Defence and dialogue
Asked how Colombia would respond if attacked, Petro said he would “prefer it to be about dialogue”.
“It’s not about confronting a large army with weapons we don’t have,” he said. “Instead, we rely on the masses, our mountains, and our jungles, as we always have.”
He added that reducing the risk depended on “ongoing conversations”.
Sources: BBC
