Colombia’s Foreign Minister Rosa Yolanda Villavicencio has warned that her country would answer any breach of its sovereignty with a military response, in the wake of threats from United States President Donald Trump.
At a news conference on Tuesday, Villavicencio underscored that, under international law, countries have the right to self-defence should they be attacked.
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“If such aggression were to occur, the military must defend the national territory and the country’s sovereignty,” she said.
Her comments come as Latin America grapples with the aftermath of the US military attack on Venezuela in the early morning hours of Saturday, which resulted in dozens of deaths and the abduction of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores.
In announcing the attack, Trump on Saturday put the Latin American region on notice, describing the Western Hemisphere as his sphere of influence.
“We are reasserting American power in a very powerful way in our home region,” Trump said, praising the “great dominance” of the US.
He added that the military operation “should serve as a warning to anyone who would threaten American sovereignty or endanger American lives”.
Parallel between Venezuela and Colombia?
Trump has maintained that Maduro was the head of a narcotics-trafficking network in Venezuela — an assertion previously questioned by the US intelligence community — and he has blamed Maduro for causing thousands of overdose deaths in the US.
On Sunday, while riding on Air Force One, Trump drew a comparison between Venezuela and Colombia, its neighbour and the world’s largest producer of cocaine.
“Venezuela, it’s very sick. Columbia is very sick too, run by a sick man who likes making cocaine and selling it to the United States,” Trump said, in seeming reference to Colombian President Gustavo Petro. “He’s not going to be doing it very long, let me tell you.”
When one reporter asked, “So there would be an operation by the US?”, Trump replied, “Sounds good to me.”
Petro’s administration has long touted its efforts to crack down on cocaine trafficking, by destroying laboratories where the drug is produced and intercepting shipments.
Last November, Petro celebrated what his government called the largest cocaine seizure in a decade, with 14 tonnes, worth nearly $388.9m, confiscated as it reached Buenaventura’s port on the Pacific Ocean.
There is no evidence that Petro himself is involved in any narcotics trafficking, despite Trump’s claims to the contrary.
He and Trump, however, have long exchanged barbs, with Petro criticising the Republican leader for his hardline immigration policies, his support for Israel’s genocidal war in Gaza, and his deadly attacks on boats in the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean.
Trump has responded by taking action against Petro, stripping the Colombian president of his US visa in September and sanctioning him in October.
Escalating rhetoric
Petro is the first left-wing president to lead Colombia’s government, and his term ends in 2026.
He has denounced the US attack on Venezuela and warned that Latin America must unite to avoid being treated as “a servant and a slave” to foreign interests.
“The US is the first country in the world to bomb a South American capital in all of human history,” Petro wrote on Sunday.
“What a terrible distinction that is, because South Americans will not forget it for generations. The wound remains open for a long time.”
He later made reference to his time as a rebel fighter during his teens and 20s, when he participated in Colombia’s six-decade-long internal armed conflict. He suggested he would take up arms again if Colombia faced foreign attack.
“I swore not to touch another weapon since the 1989 peace agreement, but for the sake of the homeland, I will take up arms again, even though I don’t want to,” Petro posted on social media.
For her part, Villavicencio has emphasised in a statement that Colombia is addressing drug trafficking with “rigour, sacrifice, and a comprehensive approach”.
On Tuesday, she added that her ministry rejects any threats against Latin American sovereignty, as well as towards Colombia’s democratically elected president.
“An offence against the president is an offence against our country and a disregard for all the democratic processes that we have carried out,” she said.
She is slated to meet members of the US Department of State later in the day.
