Trump calls Colombia president ‘illegal drug dealer’ as US says it hit another ship
Trump vows to cut US funding as Pete Hegseth says US hit Colombian rebel group vessel and ‘three terrorists killed’
Olivia Empson
Sun 19 Oct 2025 14.16 EDT
Donald Trump on Sunday accused Colombia’s president, Gustavo Petro, of being an “illegal drug dealer” and threatened to immediately cut US funding to the country, as a Republican senator said the US would soon announce “major tariffs” on the country.
It comes after the US defense secretary confirmed in a social media post an attack on a vessel associated with a Colombian leftist rebel group. Pete Hegseth said “three terrorists were killed” in the operation, which was “conducted in international waters”.
“These cartels are the Al Qaeda of the western hemisphere,” Hegseth said. “The United States military will treat these organizations like the terrorists they are – they will be hunted, and killed.”
In a post on his Truth Social platform just hours earlier, Trump had blamed Petro for encouraging the mass production of illegal drugs, saying the leftwing leader “does nothing to stop it, despite large-scale payments and subsidies from the US”.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/oct/19/trump-colombia-gustavo-petro
