Wait, Did the Colombian President Just Threatened to Assassinate Trump?

Matt Vespa | October 21, 2025 6:00 AM

A lot is going on, but things are getting testy between Colombia and the United States. Both President Trump and Colombian leader Gustavo Petro are trading barbs over numerous issues, not least being the United States aggressive anti-drug operations in the Caribbean (via NYT):

President Gustavo Petro of Colombia accused the United States of murdering a fisherman in an attack on a boat that the American authorities claimed was carrying illicit drugs. President Trump responded on Sunday that he would slash assistance and impose new tariffs on the country.
The feuding between the two leaders reflected rising tensions in the region over the huge U.S. military deployment in the Caribbean targeting Colombia’s neighbor, Venezuela. U.S. forces have killed dozens of people in recent weeks aboard vessels that the Trump administration says were ferrying drugs from Venezuela.
The administration has provided no evidence to support the claims beyond descriptions of intelligence assessments and declassified videos of portions of the attacks. Legal specialists have called such killings illegal, because militaries cannot lawfully target civilians who do not pose a threat in the moment and are not directly participating in hostilities.
“U.S. government officials have committed a murder and violated our sovereignty in territorial waters,” Mr. Petro wrote on social media. He said the man killed in the mid-September attack, Alejandro Carranza, was a “lifelong fisherman” whose boat had experienced damage and was adrift, probably in Colombian waters, at the time of the attack. His description of Mr. Carranza and his boat could not be immediately confirmed.