The US has placed sanctions on Colombia’s left-wing president, Gustavo Petro, accusing him of failing to curb drug trafficking.
“President Petro has allowed drug cartels to flourish and refused to stop this activity,” US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in a statement.
Sanctions have also been imposed on Colombia’s Interior Minister Armando Benedetti, as well as Petro’s wife and eldest son. They include barring them from accessing assets and properties they may have in the US.
Colombia was once a close ally of Washington’s war on drugs, receiving hundreds of millions of dollars annually in military assistance. But Petro and Trump have clashed frequently since Trump’s return to power.
Bessent said that since Petro, a former guerrilla, came to power, cocaine production in Colombia has “exploded to the highest rate in decades, flooding the United States and poisoning Americans”.
He added that Trump was taking “strong action” and “would not tolerate” drug trafficking into the US.
The Treasury said Colombia was the world’s top exporter of cocaine, which it says poses a “significant drug threat” to the US.
In a separate statement on Friday, the state department said it would will not certify Colombia’s counter-narcotics efforts.
Petro denied the accusations. In a post on X, he said he had been fighting drug trafficking “for decades” and had helped the US to reduce its cocaine consumption.
“A complete paradox – but not one step back, and never on our knees,” he said.
In recent weeks, the US military has ratcheted up activity in the southern Caribbean, striking vessels in international waters that it has alleged, without evidence, are carrying drugs.
Last week Trump announced the suspension of payments and subsidies to Colombia.
This came after Petro told BBC News in September airstrikes on alleged drug vessels in the Caribbean were an “act of tyranny,”, accusing US officials of murdering a Colombian citizen and violating his country’s sovereignty.
Imposing sanctions on a head of state is rare but not unprecedented. The leaders of countries including Russia, North Korea and Venezuela have previously been sanctioned.