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gustavo petro
As Trump Issues New Threats to Mexico and Colombia, Democrats Push to End Unauthorized Aggression
Rep. Gregory Meeks, who introduced a war powers resolution, said Trump’s actions combine the “worst excesses of the war on drugs and the war on terror.”
Nov 18, 2025
As Democrats in the US House of Representatives introduced their latest measure to stop President Donald Trump from continuing his attacks against alleged drug cartels without approval from Congress, the president said he wouldn't "rule out" deploying US ground troops in Venezuela—and warned he could escalate attacks across Latin America, with possible strikes in Mexico and Colombia as well.
Shortly after the Department of Defense, called the Department of War by the Trump administration, announced its 21st illegal airstrike on what they've claimed, without evidence, to be "narco-terrorist" vessels mostly in the Caribbean—attacks that have killed at least 83 people—Trump told reporters in the Oval Office on Monday that he may soon begin similar operations against drug cartels in mainland Mexico.
“Would I launch strikes in Mexico to stop drugs? It’s OK with me. I’ve been speaking to Mexico. They know how I stand,” he said. “We’re losing hundreds of thousands of people to drugs. So now we’ve stopped the waterways, but we know every route."
Earlier this month, following reports from US officials that the Trump administration had started “detailed planning” to send US troops to Mexico, the nation's president, Claudia Sheinbaum, retorted that "it’s not going to happen."
In his comments Monday, Trump threatened to carry out strikes in Colombia as well, saying: "Colombia has cocaine factories where they make cocaine. Would I knock out those factories? I would be proud to do it personally.”
Colombian President Gustavo Petro has been one of Latin America's fiercest critics of Trump's extrajudicial boat bombings, last week referring to the US president as a "barbarian." Trump, meanwhile, has baselessly accused Petro of being "an illegal drug leader," slapping him and his family with sanctions and cutting off aid to the country.
In response to Trump's threats on Monday, Petro touted the number of cocaine factories that have been "destroyed" under his tenure. According to figures from the Colombian Ministry of Defense, around 18,000 of them have been taken out of commission since Petro took office in 2022, a 21% increase from Colombia's previous president.
Immediately after Trump issued his threat against Colombia, he backpedaled, saying: "I didn't say I'm doing it, I would be proud to do it."
However, reporting from Drop Site News earlier this month has suggested that Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) "was briefed by Secretary of War Pete Hegseth on the new list of hard targets inside Venezuela, Colombia, and Mexico in early October, and lobbied fellow senators on expanding the war to include drug-related sites in Colombia."
The senator had alluded to the plans on CBS News' "Face the Nation," saying: “We’re not gonna sit on the sidelines and watch boats full of drugs come into our country. We’re gonna blow them up and kill the people who want to poison America. And we’re now gonna expand our operations, I think, to the land. So please be clear about what I’m saying today. President Donald Trump sees Venezuela and Colombia as direct threats to our country, because they house narco-terrorist organizations.”
On Tuesday, a group of Democrats in the US House of Representatives introduced another measure that would stop Trump from continuing his attacks against alleged drug cartel members without approval from Congress.
The measure would require the removal of “United States Armed Forces from hostilities with any presidentially designated terrorist organization in the Western Hemisphere,” unless Congress authorizes the use of military force or issues a declaration of war. Previous measures to stall Trump’s extrajudicial attacks have been narrowly stymied, despite receiving some support from the Republican majority.
“There is no evidence that the people being killed are an imminent threat to the United States of America,“ said Rep. Gregory Meeks (NY), the top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, who introduced the resolution.
Meeks added that Trump’s campaign of assassinations in Latin America combines “the worst excesses of the war on drugs and the war on terror.”
Trump's threats of military action come after Hegseth announced what he called "Operation Southern Spear" last week, which he said would be aimed at "remov[ing] narco-terrorists from our hemisphere." In a description that evoked the 19th-century Monroe Doctrine, Hegseth wrote on social media that "the Western Hemisphere is America's neighborhood—and we will protect it."
In the Oval Office, Trump declared, without evidence, that with each strike his administration carries out against Venezuelan boats, "we save 25,000 American lives," which experts say is obviously false since Venezuela plays a very minor role in global drug trafficking.
Several international legal experts have said Trump’s strikes constitute a war crime. Earlier this month, Oona A. Hathaway, a professor of international law at Yale Law School, said that members of the Trump administration “know what they are doing is wrong.”
“If they do it, they are violating international law and domestic law,” Hathaway said. “Dropping bombs on people when you do not know who they are is a breach of law.”
The Trump administration has argued that its actions are consistent with Article 51 of the UN’s founding charter, which requires the UN Security Council to be informed immediately of actions taken in self-defense against an armed attack.
The administration has not provided evidence that its attacks constitute a necessary form of self-defense. But last month, a panel of independent UN experts said that “even if such allegations were substantiated, the use of lethal force in international waters without proper legal basis violates the international law of the sea and amounts to extrajudicial executions.”
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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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