BOGOTA, Colombia — Intelligence “is not for killing,” Colombian President Gustavo Petro told NBC News in a wide-ranging interview Wednesday, explaining his decision to stop sharing information with the United States in opposition to lethal strikes on boats allegedly carrying illegal drugs.
Describing President Donald Trump as a “barbarian” who “wants to frighten us,” Petro, a former Marxist revolutionary and one of the few international leaders willing to openly criticize his American counterpart, called the U.S. military buildup in the Caribbean “undoubtedly an aggression against Latin America.”
Colombia would not “pass on the information because we would be collaborating with a crime against humanity,” he told NBC News at the presidential palace in Bogota, reiterating a decision announced earlier this week.
Acknowledging “the most key thing is intelligence” in combating the drug trade, he added, “The more we coordinate intelligence, the better. That is what I have been doing. But intelligence is not for killing.”
Tensions have risen dramatically between Trump and Petro in recent weeks over the issue of American military attacks against boats allegedly carrying illegal narcotics in the Caribbean and the eastern Pacific, which have killed dozens. At least 19 strikes have been carried out so far, according to Reuters.
Trump has justified them by saying the United States is in “armed conflict” with drug cartels and claiming the boats are operated by foreign terror organizations that are flooding America’s cities with drugs.
But his administration has provided no evidence for these assertions and lawmakers, including Republicans, have pressed for more information on who is being targeted and the legal justification for the strikes.
A White House official said in an email Thursday that it was “hardly surprising” that Petro was opposed to Trump’s “successful operations to halt the flow of drugs to our country.” They added that Trump had directed the actions “consistent with his responsibility to protect Americans and United States interests abroad and in furtherance of United States national security and foreign policy interests.”
“Despite billions of U.S. taxpayer dollars invested in Colombia’s counterdrug efforts, cartels are thriving under Petro’s failed policies,” they said.
Trump called Petro an “illegal drug leader” on Truth Social last month, accusing him of being directly involved in the drug trade and working with traffickers.
After Petro called a U.S. strike “murder” in a post on X, Trump said he would cut aid and raise tariffs on Colombia. The Treasury Department subsequently hit his Colombian counterpart and members of his family with sanctions.
Petro then announced this week that he was suspending intelligence sharing with Washington.
The United Kingdom has also stopped sharing intelligence because of concerns about the legality of U.S. strikes, two sources with knowledge of the matter told NBC News.
And French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot also said at the start of a a Group of Seven foreign ministers meeting in Canada on Tuesday that the strikes “violate international law” and were concerning for France’s territories in the region.
Petro did not say definitively that the boats that have been recently attacked were not carrying drugs. “Maybe or maybe not. We do not know,” he said. “According to due process, the civilized treatment of people, they should be seized and detained.”
“They are poor boatmen, they know how to drive a boat, they are hired in their poverty by the gangsters. But gangsters don’t sit on the boats,” he said. “Then when one of those missiles arrives [it] kills that boatman. It doesn’t kill the drug trafficker.”
His government, he said, “has seized more cocaine than any other government in world history. Trump’s insult is at odds reality, how can he call the largest destroyer of cocaine a chief trafficker?”
Petro strongly denied Trump’s personal accusations, calling the president “lost” and suggesting that he was being misled by other U.S. officials on the issue. “He is lost on the issue of the real analysis of what is going on with cocaine in Colombia.”
Petro, who considers himself a left-wing revolutionary, added, “He is a barbarian, but anyone can change.”
The Colombian president is not the only leader in the region feeling pressure. Trump has also singled out the president of neighboring Venezuela, Nicolas Maduro, as a target for his ire and leveled accusations of complicity in the drug trade against him, too.
The tense standoff between the U.S. and Venezuela escalated after Trump sent an aircraft carrier strike group to the Caribbean and confirmed he had approved covert CIA operations inside the country, a move that critics say could be a prelude to an attempt to push Maduro from office.
Trump has not confirmed any covert actions against Colombia yet and Petro struck a defiant tone about Trump’s recent regional moves and the potential for war.
“He wants to frighten us. Fear is not the same as the facts,” Petro said, though he did not throw his support behind Maduro, either.
Asked whether Maduro was a legitimate leader, Petro said, “No, I believe that there has been no legitimate leadership for some time.”
Richard Engel, Marc Smith and Erika Angulo reported from Bogota. Babak Dehghanpisheh reported from New York.
