Trump calls Colombian president 'illegal drug dealer' in dispute over US strikes

US President Donald Trump lashed out at his Colombian counterpart Gustavo Petro on Sunday and announced he would slash US funding to the country.

He accused the Colombian leader of doing "nothing to stop" drug production, in what is the latest sign of friction between Washington and one of its closest allies in Latin America.

In a social media post, Trump referred to Colombian President Gustavo Petro as "an illegal drug dealer" who is "low rated and very unpopular." He warned that Petro "better close up" drug operations "or the United States will close them up for him, and it won’t be done nicely."

Earlier on Sunday, Petro accused the US government of assassination and demanded answers about a US strike on an alleged drug trafficking boat on 16 September.

Petro said a Colombian man was killed and identified him as Alejandro Carranza, a fisherman from the coastal town of Santa Marta. He said that Carranza has no ties to drug trafficking and that his boat was malfunctioning when it was hit.

"US government officials have committed murder and violated our sovereignty in territorial waters," Petro wrote on X. "The Colombian boat was adrift and had a distress signal on, with one engine up. We await explanations from the US government."

Petro said that he has alerted the attorney general's office and demanded that it act immediately to initiate legal proceedings internationally and in US courts. He continued to post a flurry of messages into early Sunday about the killing.

Colombian and Ecuadorian citizens repatriated after latest strike

Trump also shared a video on his Truth Social Platform earlier on Sunday appearing to show the latest military strike on a submarine in the Caribbean accused of being a drug-carrying vessel.

In the clip, a vessel can be seen moving through the waves, its front portion submerged inches below the water’s surface. Then, several explosions are seen, with at least one over the back of the vessel.

The strike, carried out on Thursday, killed two people, according to Trump. Two survivors were taken into custody and later sent back to their home countries of Ecuador and Colombia, according to Trump.

"It was my great honor to destroy a very large DRUG-CARRYING SUBMARINE that was navigating towards the United States on a well known narcotrafficking transit route," Trump said in a social media post. "US Intelligence confirmed this vessel was loaded up with mostly Fentanyl, and other illegal narcotics."

Petro confirmed Saturday on X that the Colombian man who was detained aboard what he called a “narco submarine” was home.

"We are glad he is alive, and he will be prosecuted according to the law," Petro wrote in a brief post.

Ecuador's Ministry of the Interior also confirmed the return of the Ecuadorian citizen, identified as Andrés Fernando Tufiño Chila.

The ministry noted that two prosecutors met with Tufiño Chila and determined he had not committed any crimes within the country’s borders and that there was no evidence to the contrary.

With Trump’s statement on his Truth Social platform of the death toll, that means US military action against vessels in the region have killed at least 29 people.

The president has justified the strikes by asserting that the United States is engaged in an "armed conflict" with drug cartels.

He is relying on the same legal authority used by the George W. Bush administration when it declared a war on terrorism after the 9/11 attacks, and that includes the ability to capture and detain combatants and to use lethal force to take out their leadership.

Trump is also treating the suspected traffickers as if they were enemy soldiers in a traditional war.