The US administration announced sanctions Oct. 24 against Colombian President Gustavo Petro, his family, and Colombia’s Minister of the Interior Armando Benedetti. The US will also reduce financial assistance to Colombia by about $18 million.

According to the US Treasury Department, the sanctions mean that all properties and property interests owned in the United States by President Petro, his family, or Benedetti are blocked and must be reported to the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC). Blocking freezes the assets, meaning that they remain the property of the current owner but cannot be transferred or used without OFAC permission.

The Department of State said the move was "due to President Gustavo Petro's disastrous and ineffective counternarcotics policies," adding that President Donald Trump made it clear in a Sept. 15 determination that:

Colombia is "failing demonstrably" to uphold its drug control responsibilities… The United States will not turn a blind eye to Petro's appeasement and emboldening of narco-terrorists. We are committed to bringing terrorists and drug traffickers to justice and preventing deadly illegal drugs from entering our country. There must be no impunity for drug traffickers or acts of terrorism or violence by criminal armed groups… Today's decision is…a reflection the failures and incompetence of Gustavo Petro and his inner circle.

President Trump added to reporters: "He's a guy that is making a lot of drugs. He better watch it, or we’ll take very serious action against him and his country."

President Petro retorted:

Combating drug trafficking effectively for decades brings me this measure from the government of the society we helped so much to stop its use of cocaine. Against the calumnies that high-ranking officials have hurled at me on US soil, I will defend myself judicially with American lawyers in the US courts.

The Colombian government has recalled its ambassador to the United States in response to the White House move.

The government of Venezuela, also a target of the Trump administration's military operations in the region, decried the sanctions against Petro, calling them "illegal, illegitimate, and neocolonial actions that violate international law and the Charter of the United Nations." The statement said the measures seek to "promote the internal destabilization" of Colombia.

The sanctions are the latest step in escalating tensions between the US and Colombia.

In a related move, the US Department of Defense (now called "Department of War" by the Trump administration) announced that it was moving the aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford and its group to the Caribbean Sea. The Ford, which the US Navy calls "the most capable, adaptable, and lethal combat platform in the world," is currently being pulled from the Mediterranean to the Caribbean. As of last week, the US military had approximately 10,000 personnel in the Caribbean region.

The Colombian military has long received US training and weapons for anti-narcotics operations. Elizabeth Dickinson, a senior analyst for the Andes region at the International Crisis Group, told the Los Angeles Times: "If the United States was truly interested in combating organized crime and drug trafficking, why would they alienate the one partner in the region who is capable and willing to help?"

"In a fight between the world’s largest drug producer and the world’s largest drug consumer, only organized crime wins," former Colombian president Juan Manuel Santos said at a forum in Barcelona, Spain. "As long as we have two presidents who insult each other on Twitter every day, [combating crime] will be more difficult."

From JURIST, Oct. 27. Used with permission.

Note: On Sept 26, the US announced the revocation of Gustavo Petro's visa after he briefly joined a pro-Palestine demonstration in New York that day. Petro, in the city for the meeting of the UN General Assembly, addressed the crowd outside the United Nations building, speaking in Spanish through a megaphone. Seeming to address the militarization in the Caribbean, he said: "I ask all the soldiers of the army of the United States not to point their guns at people. Disobey the orders of Trump. Obey the orders of humanity."

The US State Department responded: "We will revoke Petro's visa due to his reckless and incendiary actions." (Reuters)