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gustavo petro
Colombian President Blasts 'Barbarian' Trump and Halts Intel Sharing Over Bombed Boats
"Intelligence is not for killing," said Gustavo Petro, who has strongly criticized the US president.
Nov 13, 2025
Colombian President Gustavo Petro sat down with NBC News in Bogotá on Wednesday to discuss his decision to stop sharing intelligence with the United States over the Trump administration's deadly boat bombings allegedly targeting drug runners in the Caribbean and Pacific.
Petro announced Tuesday that he halted "communications and other agreements with US security agencies" over the boat attacks that have killed at least 76 people. That same day, the UK government also stopped sharing intelligence related to suspected drug-trafficking vessels.
In the fight against drug trafficking, "intelligence is key," Colombia's leftist president told NBC chief foreign correspondent Richard Engel in Spanish. "The more we coordinate, the better. But intelligence is not for killing."
Critics have stressed that even if the boats are transporting drugs, US President Donald Trump's strikes are illegal. Asked by Engel whether he believes the vessels were carrying drugs, Petro said: "Maybe, or maybe not. We do not know. They are poor boatmen hired by gangsters. The gangsters don't sit on the boats."
Petro is one of the few world leaders who has publicly stood up to Trump. The Colombian leader told NBC, "He's a barbarian, but anyone can change."
As the New York Times pointed out Wednesday: "For Mr. Petro, a former rebel during Colombia's long and brutal internal conflict, defiance is nothing new. Those who know him describe a man propelled by his convictions—a lifelong critic of corruption and inequality who became the fiery face of Colombia's left."
The Trump administration has responded forcefully to Petro's critiques. In September, it revoked the Colombian president's visa over his remarks to protesters in New York City, where he was to address the United Nations General Assembly. During the speech, Petro urged the UN to open criminal proceedings over the boat bombings.
In October, Petro accused the administration of murdering a Colombian fisherman in one of the boat strikes. Trump then halted aid to the country. As Bloomberg reported Thursday, "The US has given Colombia about $14 billion this century, the most in the Americas, much of it to help fight guerrillas and traffickers."
The Trump administration last month also sanctioned Petro, his family members, and Colombian Interior Minister Armando Alberto Benedetti. As Engel noted, the US has also sanctioned Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. Even though experts have contested Trump's claim that "we have a lot of drugs coming in from Venezuela," the country and its leader are key targets of Trump.
In addition to bombing boats off the Venezuelan coast, Trump has sent a US aircraft carrier to the region, authorized Central Intelligence Agency operations in Venezuela, and is considering strikes within the country. Maduro has ordered the deployment of nearly 200,000 soldiers and accused Trump of pushing for "regime change," with his sights set on "oil, gas, gold, fertile land, and water."
During the NBC interview, Petro was critical of Maduro, saying, "I believe there has been no legitimate leadership in Venezuela for some time."
However, he also expressed concern about the possibility of Trump waging war on Colombia's neighbor. As Petro put it, "He wants to frighten us."
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'Against Humanity': Leaders Denounce Fossil Fuel-Loving Trump as He Skips Out on Global Climate Summit
“Every fraction of a degree means more hunger, displacement, and loss—especially for those least responsible,” said UN Secretary General António Guterres on Thursday. “This is moral failure—and deadly negligence.”
Nov 07, 2025
As world leaders gathered in Brazil for this year's global summit on the accelerating climate crisis this week, many took note of the absence of US President Donald Trump.
This year’s United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP30) summit comes on the tenth anniversary of the Paris Climate agreement, in which nations committed to adopting policies intended to keep global temperature increases below the threshold of 1.5°C above preindustrial levels, considered a tipping point at which many of the worst ravages of climate change will become irreversible.
Ten years later, progress has fallen far short of the mark, with leaders scrambling to keep the deal’s goals intact—an aim that is likely untenable without the cooperation of the US, the globe’s largest historical emitter of carbon.
America’s president has not only once again pulled the US out of the Paris agreement, but also sought to turn climate denial into public policy and spent his term in office thus far grinding American investment in renewable energy to a halt—actions viewed as extraordinary abdications of responsibility at a time when the globe is ever more rapidly approaching the point of no return for warming.
Fresh on climate advocates' minds are Trump’s comments at the UN General Assembly in September, when he described climate change as the world’s “greatest con job.”
On Thursday, the World Meteorological Organization found that greenhouse gas emissions had reached a record high. Meanwhile, 2025 is on track to be the third hottest year on record, behind only 2024 and 2023.
“Every fraction of a degree means more hunger, displacement, and loss—especially for those least responsible," said UN Secretary-General António Guterres on Thursday. "This is moral failure—and deadly negligence."
Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who has emerged as one of the world's leading climate defenders from the heart of the Amazon rainforest, began the conference by delivering an indirect but unmistakable shot at Trump. He denounced the "extremist forces that fabricate fake news and are condemning future generations to life on a planet altered forever by global warming."
Other Latin American leaders were more direct. Colombian President Gustavo Petro, whom Trump recently hit with sanctions and threatened with military action, denounced the US president as "against humanity," as evidenced by "his absence" at the conference.
"The president of the United States at the latest United Nations General Assembly said the climate crisis does not exist," added Chilean President Gabriel Boric. "That is a lie."
In Trump's stead, over 100 other state and local figures from US politics have traveled to Brazil to take part in the conference: Among them are California Gov. Gavin Newsom, New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, and Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers.
Another attendee is Phoenix Mayor Kate Gallego, chair of the Climate Mayors network, who recently applauded Tuesday night’s elections in the US. More than 40 candidates associated with the network came out victorious, as well as the self-described ecosocialist New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani.
“Our climate mayors did very well on the ballot,” Gallego said to applause at a local leaders forum for COP30. “We want to send this message from the US.”
But despite the US delegation, even with officials from the Trump administration absent, climate campaigners fear the White House may still seek to sabotage the conference from afar. Last month, the administration did just that when it used the threat of tariffs to strong-arm countries into killing what would have been a global-first carbon fee on shipping.
Even without Trump present, COP30 is crawling with fossil fuel lobbyists seeking to stymie progress. A report released Friday from the climate advocacy group Kick Big Polluters Out found that over 5,350 fossil fuel lobbyists have attended UN climate negotiations over the past four years. The corporations they represent are responsible for more than 60% of global emissions.
“These companies have defended their fossil interests by watering down climate action for years," said Fiona Hauke of the German environmental group Urgewald. "As we head towards COP30, we demand transparency and accountability: Keep polluters out of climate talks and make them pay for a just energy transition.”
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Trump Baselessly Calls Colombia's Petro 'Drug Dealer' as US Bombs Another Boat
The leftist Colombian president retorted that "US government officials have committed a murder and violated our sovereignty in territorial waters."
Oct 19, 2025
The United States carried out another deadly attack on a boat it claimed was being used by a left-wing Colombian revolutionary group to transport drugs in the Caribbean Sea, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said Sunday, hours after President Donald Trump alleged without evidence that Colombia's president "is an illegal drug dealer."
Hegseth said the strike, which took place on Friday, targeted "a vessel affiliated with Ejército de Liberación Nacional (ELN), a designated terrorist organization."
The ELN is Colombia's last-standing far-left guerrilla group. Founded in 1964, the group fought to liberate Colombia from longtime right-wing rule, end foreign influence—especially from the United States—and achieve social justice and equality for the poor. ELN has been accused of using proceeds from drug trafficking to fund its insurgency.
"The vessel was known by our intelligence to be involved in illicit narcotics smuggling, was traveling along a known narco-trafficking route, and was transporting substantial amounts of narcotics," Hegseth said without offering evidence. "There were three male narco-terrorists aboard the vessel during the strike—which was conducted in international waters. All three terrorists were killed and no US forces were harmed in this strike."
"These cartels are the al-Qaeda of the Western Hemisphere, using violence, murder and terrorism to impose their will, threaten our national security, and poison our people," the defense secretary added. "The United States military will treat these organizations like the terrorists they are—they will be hunted, and killed, just like al-Qaeda."
Hegseth's announcement followed a post by Trump on his Truth Social network calling leftist Colombian President Gustavo Petro "an illegal drug leader strongly encouraging the massive production of drugs."
Trump offered no evidence to back his baseless claim. The US itself has a long history of involvement in the international drug trade, from American capitalists profiting immensely from opium trafficking in the 19th century to the Central Intelligence Agency working with narcotrafficking anti-communist groups in Southeast Asia and Central America during the Cold War, helping to fuel first the heroin and later crack cocaine epidemics in the United States.
The US president further alleged that drugs have "become the biggest business in Colombia, by far, and Petro does nothing to stop it, despite large scale payments and subsidies from the USA that are nothing more than a long-term rip off of America."
Trump added:
AS OF TODAY, THESE PAYMENTS, OR ANY OTHER FORM OF PAYMENT, OR SUBSIDIES, WILL NO LONGER BE MADE TO COLOMBIA. The purpose of this drug production is the sale of massive amounts of product into the United States, causing death, destruction, and havoc. Petro, a low-rated and very unpopular leader, with a fresh mouth toward America, better close up these killing fields immediately, or the United States will close them up for him, and it won’t be done nicely.
According to The Associated Press, Colombia received an estimated $230 million in US aid for the budget year that ended on September 30.
Trump has ordered attacks on at least seven alleged drug-running boats without providing concrete evidence to support his claims. At least 29 people have been killed in the attacks.
In a series of posts on the social media site X, Petro said that "US government officials have committed a murder and violated our sovereignty in territorial waters," repeating claims that some victims of the US strikes, including Thursday's, were fishermen.
"I respect the history, culture, and people of the USA," Petro wrote in a subsequent post. "They are not my enemies, nor do I feel them as such. The problem is with Trump, not with the USA."
Refuting Trump's accusation that he has "done nothing to stop" drug trafficking, Petro noted that "we have reduced the coca leaf crop growth rate to almost 0%. In past governments, there were years with nearly 100% annual growth. Today, half of the total coca leaf crop area has crops that have been abandoned for three years."
The Trump administration said Thursday that survivors of one recent strike, a Colombian and an Ecuadorean, would be repatriated to their respective countries, possibly as a way to skirt concerns over the legality of the attacks.
On Thursday, Hegseth said that US Southern Command chief Adm. Alvin Holsey—who is overseeing the boat attacks—will step down at the end of the year. Holsey's resignation reportedly stems from concerns over the strikes.
"If Commander Alvin has resigned for refusing to be complicit in the murder of Caribbean civilians by US missiles deliberately launched against them from comfortable offices, I consider him a hero and a true officer of the armies of the Americas," Petro said in response to the news. "I said in New York, on one of its streets, that I asked the officers of the US military forces not to aim their weapons at humanity."
The Trump administration revoked Petro's US visa following his speech.
"I believe that Commander Alvin has proven himself to be a man of worth by refusing to aim his weapons at humanity. Perhaps Commander Alvin does not know it, but he is a true officer of the armies of Washington and Bolívar," Petro added, referring to George Washington and the great South American liberator Simón Bolívar.
On his first day back in the White House in January, Trump signed an executive order designating drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations. Last month, the president reportedly signed a secret order directing the Pentagon to use military force to combat drug cartels abroad, sparking fears of renewed US aggression in a region that has endured well over 100 US attacks, invasions, occupations, and other interventions since the issuance of the dubious Monroe Doctrine in 1823.
Trump has also deployed a small armada of naval warships off the coast of Venezuela, which has endured more than a century of Washington's imperialist meddling, raising fears of yet another US war of choice and regime change.
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