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'Will unleash the jaguar': Colombia President reacts to Trump's ‘watch his ass’ threat after Venezuela
Trump administration is close to the right-wing opposition in Colombia, which has high hopes of winning elections later this year
Colombian President Gustavo Petro, a former guerrilla who laid down arms to become one of Latin America's most successful leftist leaders, has said he's ready to "take up arms" if Donald Trump follows through with his threats after the US military's regime-change strike in neighboring Venezuela.
"I swore not to touch a weapon again... but for the homeland I will take up arms again," Petro said on X, as per a report by news agency AFP.
Trump said over the weekend that Petro should "watch his ass", and described Colombia's first-ever leftist leader as “a sick man who likes making cocaine and selling it to the United States”.
Trump and the US administration had made similar allegations of narco-terror against Maduro and his wife, among other Venezuelan leaders, for years before “capturing” them last Saturday.
Colombia's Petro has been defending his government and citing its anti-narcotics operations, including major cocaine seizures and coca crop reduction, before and after Trump's assertions.
In a post on X, Petro also criticised US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, accusing him of misrepresenting Colombia’s constitutional framework. He said the President of Colombia is, by law, the Supreme Commander of the military and police.
Defending his record, Petro said his government had overseen what he described as the world’s largest cocaine seizure; curbed the expansion of coca cultivation; and launched a voluntary crop substitution programme covering around 30,000 hectares. He added that security operations had targeted major drug trafficking hubs and armed groups, while adhering to humanitarian law.
Petro, whose M-19 urban guerrilla group disarmed under a 1989 peace agreement, has traded barbs with Trump ever since the Republican's return to the White House in January 2025.
He has been a vocal critic of US military deployment in the Caribbean, which began with blowing up of alleged drug boats, before expanding to seizure of Venezuelan oil tankers, then Saturday's raid on Caracas to seize President Maduro.
Trump has accused the Colombian leader, without providing evidence, of being involved in drug trafficking, and hit him and his family with financial sanctions.
Washington also removed Colombia from a list of countries certified as allies in the US war on drugs.
In his long message on X, Petro insisted that his anti-narcotics policy is sufficiently robust, but stressed there were limits to how aggressive the military can be. "If you bomb even one of these groups without sufficient intelligence, you will kill many children. If you bomb peasants, thousands will turn into guerrillas in the mountains. And if you detain the president, whom a good part of my people love and respect, you will unleash the popular jaguar," he wrote.
The Trump administration is close to the right-wing opposition in Colombia, which has high hopes of winning legislative and presidential elections later this year.
