WASHINGTON, D.C. – The United States has imposed sweeping sanctions on Colombian President Gustavo Petro, accusing him of failing to rein in drug cartels and presiding over what Washington called a “disastrous and ineffective” anti-narcotics policy.
The move marks an escalation in the increasingly fraught relationship between Colombia’s first left-wing president and U.S. President Donald Trump, whose administration has taken a hard line on Latin American governments it deems soft on drug crime.
Announcing the decision on Wednesday, U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said cocaine production in Colombia had “exploded to the highest rate in decades, flooding the United States and poisoning Americans.”
“President Petro has allowed cartels to flourish under his watch,” Bessent said. “The people of Colombia deserve better than a government that turns a blind eye to criminal networks enriching themselves at their expense.”
The sanctions freeze any assets Petro, his wife, or his eldest son may have in the U.S., and bar them from accessing American financial systems. Colombia’s Interior Minister Armando Benedetti was also named in the sanctions list.
Diplomatic Rift Deepens
The unprecedented action against a sitting South American head of state underscores how far ties between Bogotá and Washington have deteriorated since Petro took office in 2022.
The two leaders have traded sharp accusations in recent months over U.S. airstrikes on boats suspected of smuggling cocaine across the Caribbean, which left dozens dead, including Colombian nationals.
While the Trump administration defended the strikes as part of its regional anti-drug campaign, Petro denounced them as “murder” and “an act of tyranny.”
At the United Nations General Assembly in New York last month, Petro accused Washington of using “violence to dominate Colombia and Latin America,” saying U.S. military actions were more about control than combating narcotics.
Colombia Hits Back
In a swift response on Thursday, Petro condemned the sanctions as “arbitrary” and accused the U.S. of hypocrisy.
“What the U.S. Treasury is doing is an arbitrariness typical of an oppressive regime,” he said. “I have been fighting drug trafficking for decades and have in fact stemmed the growth of coca crops.”
Colombia’s government said it would suspend all future arms purchases from the United States, and warned the move could have “long-term consequences” for security cooperation.
Washington also announced that it would revoke Colombia’s certification as an official partner in the war on drugs — a designation that had for years granted the country access to financial and military assistance.
Record Cocaine Production
Despite Petro’s claims, independent analysts say cocaine production has reached record levels.
Researcher Héctor Galeano of the Institute of Advanced Social and Cultural Studies of Latin America and the Caribbean said that coca cultivation “has never been higher.”
The U.S. Treasury says much of Colombia’s cocaine is purchased by Mexican cartels for smuggling into the United States — a long-standing supply chain that Petro’s administration has struggled to disrupt.
Petro has argued that the solution lies in reducing demand for cocaine in the U.S. and Europe, not simply eradicating crops in Colombia.
His government has also sought to negotiate peace deals with armed groups involved in the trade, part of his broader “total peace” policy. But those talks have stalled amid renewed violence and internal divisions.
Rare Move Against a President
While sanctions on sitting world leaders are unusual, they are not without precedent.
The U.S. has previously targeted leaders from Russia, North Korea and Venezuela, often citing corruption or human rights abuses.
The sanctions on Petro, however, mark the first time in decades that Washington has penalised a leader of a country that was once its closest ally in Latin America’s decades-long “war on drugs.”
