The United States government has just published on the official website of the Department of the Treasury that it has included Colombian President Gustavo Petro on the Clinton list, as the list of individuals associated with drug trafficking is known. Others refer to it as the OFAC list. In addition to the president, the names of his wife, Veronica Alcocer, his eldest son, Nicolás Petro Burgos, and his Minister of the Interior, Armando Benedetti, also appear on the list. The Clinton list is often associated with a kind of commercial paralysis, as it often seeks to freeze the transactions and bank accounts of those on the list, making their mobility, both financial and for travel, more difficult.
“Treasury is sanctioning Colombian President Gustavo Petro for his role in illicit drug trafficking,” the Department of State’s account reads. “Under President Petro, cocaine production in Colombia has skyrocketed to record levels. Petro has offered benefits to narco-terrorist organizations. Under President Trump’s leadership, we will not tolerate drugs being trafficked into our nation and poisoning Americans.”
Petro responded immediately to the announcement. “Bernie Moreno’s threat has indeed been fulfilled. My wife, my children, and I have entered the OFAC list,” the Colombian president wrote on X, referring to one of his Republican opponents in the United States Congress. “My defense attorney will be Dany Kovalik of the United States. Having fought drug trafficking effectively for decades brings me this measure from the government of the society we helped so much to stop their cocaine use.”
The news comes after a tense week between Presidents Petro and Trump, after the latter, last Sunday, called Petro a drug trafficking leader. That same day, it was announced that Colombia would be punished with tariffs, but on Monday, the announcement never came. Trump, on the other hand, announced that no more cooperation funds would be sent to Colombia, which would mean ending the security support the South American country has received for more than two decades. But rumors also began to circulate that, while tariffs were not announced for the country, direct punishment would be imposed on the president. Indeed, such punishment came, not only for him but also for two of his relatives and his Minister of the Interior.
“For having defended the dignity of the country and for defending President Gustavo Petro not being a drug trafficker, they put me on the OFAC list without me having attacked them,” Minister Benedetti responded. “This shows that every empire is unjust and that its anti-drug war is a farce. In this country, no one believes the story that I'm a drug trafficker. I've never entered the home of a single drug trafficker. For the US, a nonviolent statement is the same as being a drug trafficker. Gringos go home.”
Republican Bernie Moreno, denounced by Petro for creating the crisis against him in the White House, only shared the news with a mocking message:"FAFO." An acronym that roughly translates to: "If you bother us, you'll know what happens."
No Colombian president in the 21st century has been sanctioned like Petro is today. The last was Ernesto Samper, who lost his visa to the United States when several of his allies confessed that drug money was used in the liberal politician's 1994 presidential campaign. A similar suspicion may lie behind the sanctions announced this Friday in Washington. The president's eldest son is currently being investigated for money laundering and illicit enrichment, after his ex-wife revealed to Semana magazine that, in 2022, he met with disreputable businessmen who wanted to finance his father's campaign. This could explain why he appears on the Clinton list today.
"The same prosecutor, Lucy Laborde, stated at a hearing that my case has nothing to do with drug trafficking or the presidential campaign. The sole reason I am Gustavo Petro's son is that they unfairly put me on the Clinton List. This is an unprecedented political and judicial persecution. I will go to international organizations to defend my rights," Nicolás Petro responded to the local newspaper El Tiempo.
The same magazine Semana revealed, on another occasion, an audio recording in which Interior Minister Armando Benedetti, who was key to Petro's 2022 campaign, alludes to a possible infiltration of drug money into the campaign."Read how the son of a bitch 8,000 started and why it started, that's the key to everything that's going to happen to you," he shouted at Petro's then-right-hand woman, Laura Sarabia. Proceso 8,000 is how the investigation against Samper for drug money became known. That said, neither the judicial system nor the National Electoral Council, which reviews campaign accounts, have so far confirmed drug money in Gustavo Petro's campaign.
Before the current crisis, the United States government decertified Colombia as an allied country in the fight against drugs. The latest United Nations reports have revealed a steady increase in coca crops—something that began under the previous administration of Iván Duque—and that has gone hand in hand with the strengthening of the armed groups that traffic drugs to the United States. Petro has defended himself by saying that the reports contain methodological errors and that, while he has not focused on small farmers who grow coca leaves, he has made more seizures than any other president at sea and on land before the drugs reach the United States."The Colombian strategy against drugs is more effective than what is being said," he said yesterday at a press conference with international media."I have extradited 700 drug traffickers to the United States," he also stated. These are data that Donald Trump doesn't seem to care about.
The President of the United States has given a new lease of life to Richard Nixon's old war on drugs, and under that banner has begun bombing boats in the Caribbean Sea and the Pacific Ocean, claiming, without evidence, that they belonged to drug traffickers and were headed to North America. Secretary of Defense Pete Heghseth, who prefers to be called Secretary of War, has insisted in recent days that he will pursue drug cartels as the United States once pursued the Islamist group al-Qaeda. He has already designated the Tren de Aragua, a criminal organization of Venezuelan origin but with a presence in several Latin American countries, as a terrorist group. He has also announced that he is seeking a reward for Nicolás Maduro, the authoritarian leader of Venezuela, for being a member of the Cartel of the Suns, an organization also linked to drug trafficking. The new chapter of this Trump war is being played out in Colombia, not only on boats or submarines, but with harsh sanctions against Gustavo Petro.
