US-Colombia relations soared out of control Sunday when US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth claimed US forces destroyed a vessel suspected of belonging to Colombia’s left-wing guerrilla organization, the National Liberation Army (ELN). The three-person fatal attack came hours before President Donald Trump publicly identified Colombian President Gustavo Petro as an “illegal drug leader” and placed a freeze on US payments to the South American nation.
Hegseth posted on X that the Pentagon also struck and sank the vessel Friday in the USSOUTHCOM zone of responsibility, covering operations from across Latin America and the Caribbean. The vessel was “involved in illicit narcotics smuggling” and directly attributed to the ELN — a decades-old Marxist insurgency group renowned for drug running and attacks against Colombia’s security forces.
No other evidence or information was revealed to corroborate the claims. The Pentagon declined to comment on Hegseth’s tweet, and the Washington, D.C., Colombian Embassy failed to provide an immediate response.
Trump Accuses Petro of Drug Collusion
The military assault came only hours after President Trump scolded his Colombian counterpart on Truth Social, faulting Petro for “strongly encouraging the massive production of drugs” and promising to hold back “large-scale payments and subsidies” from Bogotá.
“The goal of this drug production is the sale of enormous amounts of product into the United States, causing death, destruction, and chaos,” Trump wrote.
It isn’t apparent what specific payments the president was thinking about. Historically, Colombia has been one of the largest recipients of U.S. foreign aid in the Western Hemisphere — receiving billions under Plan Colombia and later Peace Colombia initiatives to fight drug cartels and aid rural development.
But the flow of assistance this year has taken a precipitous drop since President Trump directed USAID to shut down its operations in the country as part of his broader cuts in international assistance programs.
Washington-Bogotá Relations Reach New Low
Diplomatic relations between Colombia and the U.S. have quickly deteriorated since President Trump’s January comeback. Washington last month canceled President Petro’s U.S. visa after he attended a pro-Palestinian rally in New York, where he called on American troops to “disobey illegal orders.”
That episode, coupled with the growing belligerent actions of America’s armed forces in the Caribbean, has stoked smoldering anger in Colombia and across Latin America.
Human rights organizations, including Amnesty International, have labeled the recent U.S. navy assaults “extrajudicial killings” and “contraventions of international maritime law.” A Colombian ship attacked last month, which country officials said, was in fact a civilian-owned vessel, a charge which the Trump administration denied.
Colombia’s Struggle with the Drug Trade
Despite decades of international aid, Colombia remains one of the world’s biggest producers of coca, the plant that leads to cocaine. President Petro, Colombia’s first leftist president, has pledged a new approach against the cocaine industry — targeting rural development, crop substitution, and talks with guerrilla forces.
But outcomes have been mixed. Coca-growing region violence has persisted, and cocaine yields have allegedly reached record levels, the U.N. says. Opponents insist Petro’s “peace by dialogue” strategy has emboldened criminal networks while driving away the U.S., Colombia’s most important security partner of the last few decades.
Washington Calls Colombia a “Failed Partner”
In a further step weakening ties, the Trump administration this month put Colombia on a list of countries that have “demonstrably failed” to comply with international anti-narcotics agreements — along with Afghanistan, Bolivia, Burma, and Venezuela.
Experts warn that the combination of U.S. sanctions, reduced aid, and unilateral strikes may push Bogotá toward seeking new alliances, potentially strengthening its ties with China or Russia.
“This is the nadir of U.S.-Colombia relations in more than two decades,” stated Javier González, a foreign policy analyst based in Bogotá. “What was once a strategic alliance in the war on drugs has today turned into outright enmity.”
A Dangerous Turning Point
As of Sunday, both the ELN and the Colombian authorities had not issued any formal announcement on the loss of a boat. The U.S. Defense Department still insisted that the attack was a “legitimate counter-narcotics operation” aimed at targeting cartel networks operating their activities throughout the Caribbean.
But with hot rhetoric on both sides — and more and more militarized operations at sea — what began as a campaign of narcotics interdiction may now threaten to deepen into a more complete diplomatic crisis.
