Yesterday, US President Donald Trump launched one of his trademark discursive attacks against Colombia—a country he called “Columbia,” without it being clear whether out of ignorance or an incomprehensible irony—and its leader, Gustavo Petro, accusing him of being “a drug trafficking leader who promotes mass drug production in large and small fields” and threatening that if the Colombian president does not close “those extermination camps immediately, the United States will close them, and it won’t be a good way,” which constitutes a threat of military intervention in that South American nation, similar to those he has made against neighboring Venezuela.
The statement, posted on the magnate's social media platform, contains defamations as disproportionate as those expressed about Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. It was presented in reaction to Petro's accusations the day before, who denounced that, under the pretext of fighting drug trafficking, Washington's military forces deployed in the Caribbean Sea are murdering fishermen in lethal attacks—disclosed by the White House itself—against small boats. Petro also stated that the real motivation for the US leader's hostility is not to prevent drugs from reaching the United States from South America, but rather to seize the oil from Venezuela and Guyana.
The truth is that, unexpectedly and without offering any plausible motive, the US president has extended his militaristic and interventionist threats to these two Latin American countries. This adds to the aggressiveness that Washington, through Trump himself or officials in his administration, maintains toward Brazil—due to the trial and recent conviction of coup leader Jair Bolsonaro, his friend and ally—and, to a lesser extent, toward Mexico, which he has consistently slandered since his first presidential campaign in 2016.
Trump's hostility manifests itself in a wide variety of ways: from trade aggression to military provocations like those he has launched against Venezuela, to unfounded accusations of alleged government complicity in drug trafficking—accusations often reported in the neighboring country's media—and the resulting threats of armed incursions. And the greater the internal indicators of his inability as a leader, the more his belligerence grows toward nations that have been Washington's partners and allies for decades, not to mention his persecutory designs on U.S. political sectors that do not support his folly.
In these circumstances, it is evident that the countries that have been victims of Trump's virulence must unite to express their rejection of the provocations, intrigues, and threats of intervention, demand respect for self-determination and sovereignty, and defend cooperation, dialogue, respect for international law, as well as peace as the only sensible path to conduct relations between Latin America and the declining superpower.
