US President Donald Trump has threatened Colombian President Gustavo Petro following Washington’s abduction of the Venezuelan leader and said he believes Cuba’s government is likely to collapse soon.
President Trump’s comments on Sunday came amid mounting protests 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.”
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Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One that Colombia and Venezuela are “very sick” and that the Bogota government is run by “sick people who like to make cocaine and sell it to the United States.”
“And he won’t be doing it for very long. I’m telling you,” Trump said, referring to Petro.
Asked if he meant a U.S. operation against Colombia, Trump said, “I think that’s a good thing.”
The comments prompted a harsh rebuke from Petro, who ordered Trump to “stop the slander” and called on Latin American countries to unite or risk being “treated as servants and slaves.”
In a long series of posts about X, Petro noted that “the United States was the first country in human history to bomb a South American capital.” But revenge is not the answer, he said.
Instead, Latin America must come together and become a region “with the ability to understand, trade and unite with the whole world,” Petro said.
“We’re looking in all directions, not just north,” he said.
Warning for Venezuela, Mexico and Cuba
U.S. forces detained Maduro in Caracas early Saturday in what Washington described as a law enforcement operation to bring him to trial on “narcoterrorism” charges.
President Maduro has denied the allegations, and critics say the U.S. overthrow of Venezuela’s leader was aimed at seizing control of the country’s vast oil reserves.
President Trump told reporters on Air Force One that the United States remains “in charge” of Venezuela, despite the country’s Supreme Court appointing Vice President Delcy Rodriguez as interim leader.
He also reiterated his threat to send U.S. troops back to Venezuela if he “does not act.”
President Trump said many Cubans were killed in the U.S. raid on Caracas, adding that U.S. military intervention in Cuba was unnecessary as the country appeared ready to fall on its own.
“Cuba is ready to collapse,” he said. “Cuba has no income right now. They get all their income from Venezuela, from Venezuelan oil. They’re not receiving any of it. Cuba is literally ready to collapse.”
President Trump went on to warn Mexico, saying, “Mexico is going to have to act because (drugs) are flowing into Mexico. We’re going to have to do something.”
He described Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum as a “wonderful person” and said that every time he spoke to her, she offered to send U.S. troops to Mexico.
The Mexican government has the ability to address the problem, he said, but “unfortunately the cartels are very strong in Mexico.”
President Trump has made no secret of his ambitions to expand the US presence in the Western Hemisphere and revive the 19th century Monroe Doctrine, which placed Latin America within the US government’s sphere of influence.
President Trump calls his 21st century version the “Don Ro Doctrine.”
His comments Sunday were not his first warning to Latin American countries.
Immediately after Maduro’s abduction, President Trump said that Petro “has to be careful about his attitude” and that “eventually we will talk about the political situation in Cuba, because Cuba is a failed state.”
“Dangerous precedent”
Meanwhile, the US attack on Venezuela continued to draw international condemnation.
In a joint statement, the governments of Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Uruguay and Spain expressed “deep concern” and said they “categorically reject any unilateral military action taken within Venezuelan territory.”
“These actions violate fundamental principles of international law, in particular the prohibition on the use or threat of force. They set an extremely dangerous precedent for peace and regional security and endanger civilians,” they said.
Analysts said it remained unclear whether Trump would act on his threats or aim to coerce the United States into cooperating.
“It’s very hard to predict. If you look at the way Trump operates, what he’s always wanted is for other countries to do what he wants without him having to use force. These short, spectacular displays of force, like the bombing in Iran or this operation in Venezuela, will frighten other countries into doing what Trump wants,” said David Smith, an associate professor at the Center for American Studies at the University of Sydney.
Smith said Trump is “trying to pressure regime change” across Latin America in other ways, noting that the president previously quarreled with Petro over deportation flights and sanctioned a Brazilian judge who oversaw the prosecution of former President Jair Bolsonaro, a Trump ally, on charges of attempted insurrection.
President Trump also pardoned former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez, who supported Javier Millei’s right-wing government in Argentina and was accused of drug trafficking.
“In this first year of his administration, we generally saw a much more concerted policy of promoting right-wing governments in Latin America and damaging left-wing governments in Latin America,” Smith said.
Matthew Wilson, a political scientist at Southern Methodist University in the US, said Cuba would be a top priority for any further action, given America’s long-standing grievances with the country.
Relations between the United States and Cuba have been strained since Fidel Castro overthrew the Washington-backed Havana government in 1959 and established a socialist state allied with the former Soviet Union.
“I would be more worried if I was in Cuba than if I were in Colombia,” Wilson said. “Because there is a long-standing grievance against Cuba in the United States, and there is no doubt that there is a mobilization of Cuban-American voters there who are very hostile to the regime.”
