The president of the leading cocaine producer in the world said Wednesday morning that the U.S. strike on a Tren de Aragua drug trafficking vessel Tuesday was tantamount to “murder.”
Colombian President Gustavo Petro said, in in a post translated by the Daily Caller News Foundation, that the pilots of the boat were likely “poor young people” and that the killing was unjust because the transporters weren’t the “big narcos.” Colombia is not only the world’s largest exporter of cocaine, but also plays host to some of Latin America’s most vicious cartels and militias.
“We have been capturing civilians who transport drugs for decades without killing them,” Petro said in his post. “Those who transport drugs are not the big narcos, but very poor young people from the Caribbean and the Pacific.”
Si esto es verdad, es un asesinato en cualquier parte del mundo.
Llevamos décadas capturando civiles que transportan drogas sin matarlos. Los que transportan drogas no son los grandes narcos, sino los jóvenes muy pobres del Caribe y el Pacífico pic.twitter.com/Z55UEMIpsD
— Gustavo Petro (@petrogustavo) September 3, 2025
President Donald Trump designated a slew of Latin American cartels as terrorist organizations in early August and authorized the U.S. military to strike the groups. The strike on Tuesday killed 11 operatives from the Venezuelan Tren de Aragua cartel.
Colombia exported a record high of 2,664 metric tons of cocaine in 2023, according to United Nations statistics. Petro was formerly a member of the M-19 militia, a Marxist militant group turned political party.
Petro has attempted to establish talks with armed groups, cartels and militias in Colombia after a brutal civil war killed thousands of Colombians over the course of more than 60 years. However, criminal groups have only added to their numbers since Petro came into office in 2023.
Petro has established himself as one of many international Trump critics early in his term, engaging in a public spat with the President over accepting deportation planes returning Colombians who illegally entered the United States. Petro has also claimed that cocaine is outlawed worldwide in part because it was mainly made in Latin America, also claiming it was “not worse than whiskey.”
The Colombian Foreign Ministry did not immediately respond to the DCNF’s request for comment.
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