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Trump threatens Colombia with military strike
US president repeats threat to annex Greenland
Trump’s comments on Sunday came amid a growing outcry over the brazen abduction of Nicolas Maduro, with Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Uruguay and Spain condemning the US action as a “dangerous precedent for peace and regional security”.
Trump told reporters on board Air Force One that Venezuela and Colombia were “very sick” and that the government in Bogota was run by “a sick man who likes making cocaine and selling it to the United States”.
“And he’s not going to be doing it very long. Let me tell you,” Trump said, referring to Petro.
When asked if he meant a US operation against Colombia, Trump said, “Sounds good to me.” The remarks prompted a sharp rebuke from Petro, who told Trump to “stop slandering” him while also calling on Latin American countries to unite or risk being “treated as a servant and slave”.
In a series of lengthy posts on X, Petro noted that “the US is the first country in the world to bomb a South American capital in all of human history”. But he said revenge was not the answer.
‘Latin America must unite’
Instead, Latin America must unite, Petro said, and become a region “with the capacity to understand, trade, and join together with the whole world”.
“We do not look only to the north, but in all directions,” he said.
US forces kidnapped Maduro in Caracas early on Saturday in what Washington described as a law enforcement operation to bring him to trial on “narcoterrorism” charges.
Maduro denies the allegations, and critics say the US’s toppling of the Venezuelan leader was aimed at taking control of the country’s vast oil reserves.
Trump said a lot of Cubans were killed in the US raid on Caracas, adding that an American military intervention in Cuba was unnecessary because the island appears ready to fall on its own.
“Cuba is ready to fall,” he said. “Cuba now has no income. They got all of their income from Venezuela, from the Venezuelan oil. They’re not getting any of it. Cuba literally is ready to fall.”
The US and Cuba have had strained relations since Fidel Castro overthrew a Washington-backed government in Havana in 1959 and established a socialist state allied with the former Soviet Union.
Trump went on to warn Mexico, saying the country “has to get their act together because they’re [drugs] pouring through Mexico and we’re going to have to do something”.
Greenland annexation
Donald Trump again proposed annexing Greenland, after Denmark's leader urged him to "stop the threats" over the island. The US president said "we need Greenland from the standpoint of national security".
Trump has repeatedly raised the prospect of the semi-autonomous Danish territory becoming an annexed part of the US, citing its strategic location for defense purposes and mineral wealth. Greenland's Prime Minister Jens Frederik Nielsen responded by saying "that's enough now" and described the notion of US control over the island as a "fantasy".