{"id":306394,"date":"2025-11-03T12:01:22","date_gmt":"2025-11-03T12:01:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=306394"},"modified":"2025-10-29T08:31:46","modified_gmt":"2025-10-29T08:31:46","slug":"the-us-targets-colombians-by-sanctioning-gustavo-petro","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2025\/11\/the-us-targets-colombians-by-sanctioning-gustavo-petro\/","title":{"rendered":"The US Targets Colombians by Sanctioning Gustavo Petro"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\u201cI do not have a dollar in the United States. There is no account to freeze for me.\u201d\u00a0<\/em>\u00a0– Colombian President Gustavo Petro, solidarity rally in Bogota, 24 Oct 2025.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

29 Oct 2025 –\u00a0<\/em>As part of his escalating aggression toward Venezuela, Colombia, Cuba, and Brazil, Donald Trump ordered his Treasury Department to sanction Colombian President Gustavo Petro, his wife Ver\u00f3nica Alcocer, his son Nicol\u00e1s Petro, and Colombian Interior Minister Armando Benedetti for drug trafficking offenses. The Treasury Department\u00a0announced<\/a> the sanctions on October 24, five days after Petro\u00a0accused<\/a> Trump of murdering Alejandro Carranza in a mid-September 2025 US military strike on his small fishing boat in Colombian territorial waters.<\/p>\n

Trump tried to justify killing Carranza with the unproven allegation that he was trafficking drugs. As of October 24, the US had murdered 43 alleged drug traffickers by bombing small boats in the Caribbean, without any due process.<\/p>\n

I spoke to human rights attorney Dan Kovalik, who is representing Petro and his inner circle in contesting the sanctions.<\/p>\n

*************************<\/p>\n

ANN GARRISON:<\/strong> Dan, can you explain the significance of the new US sanctions on Gustavo Petro, his family, and his Interior Minister? Sanctions are primarily foreign asset freezes and travel restrictions, but Petro responded, in a\u00a0fiery speech<\/a>, that he has no assets for the US to seize and no desire to do business in the US. The US had already revoked his visa for a speech he made to pro-Palestinian protestors outside the UN General Assembly in September, so the travel restrictions are irrelevant.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t these sanctions indirectly target the Colombian people, and how are they likely to suffer as a result?<\/p>\n

DAN KOVALIK:<\/strong>\u00a0 Experience shows that such sanctions can adversely impact a country like Colombia because they inevitably keep companies and financial institutions from doing any business with that country for fear of being sanctioned themselves. This problem is known as \u201covercompliance,\u201d which is often the intention of the sanctions in the first place. It leads to inflation, a shortage of necessary goods (including food and medicine), and an undermining of the economy generally.<\/p>\n

The hope of the US in imposing these sanctions is to vilify the sanctioned leader, squeeze the population, and thereby encourage regime change.<\/p>\n

AG:\u00a0<\/strong>Trump included Colombia on its\u00a0list<\/a> of \u201cMajor Drug Transit or Major Illicit Drug Producing Countries for Fiscal Year 2026,\u201d but this is nothing new. James Broward just published a devastating piece, \u201cThe Sordid History of US \u2018Aid\u2019 to Colombia<\/a>,\u201d which included the Clinton Administration\u2019s aerial spraying of chemicals so toxic that even their manufacturer, Dow Chemical, strongly protested. Meanwhile, in the last year of the Clinton Administration, the wife of his top military official in Colombia, Colonel James Hiett, was convicted of using diplomatic pouches to smuggle cocaine and heroin to the US, and he was convicted of hiding the crime and laundering the profits.<\/p>\n

Coca growing and cocaine production continued to\u00a0climb<\/a> under Petro\u2019s extreme\u00a0right-wing<\/a>,\u00a0Zionist<\/a> predecessor, Iv\u00e1n Duque M\u00e1rquez, but he wasn\u2019t sanctioned. While Duque was in power, Biden even designated Colombia a \u201cMajor Non-NATO Ally<\/a>,\u201d an alliance Petro\u00a0dismantled<\/a> to ally instead with Venezuela and its president,\u00a0Nicol\u00e1s Maduro.<\/p>\n

So these sanctions are clearly politically motivated. What else would you say is motivating US hostility to Petro?<\/p>\n

DK:<\/strong> I think there are a number of reasons for this hostility, including Petro\u2019s outspoken advocacy for the Palestinian people, his criticism of Israel, and his opposition to US intervention in the region. For the first time in Colombia\u2019s modern history, it is an independent nation instead of a US beachhead, and this has incensed the powers that be in the US.<\/p>\n

Petro has also moved to exert more state control over resource extraction and electricity production, which of course alarms multinational corporations. He hasn\u2019t nationalized any natural resources, but he has halted new exploration contracts on oil, gas, and coal; increased taxes on the fossil fuel industry; increased environmental protections in the extractive industries; initiated a domestic transition to renewable energy; and sought to end large-scale, environmentally damaging open-pit mining in favor of small-scale, traditional mining.<\/p>\n

He also seems to have sought, thus far unsuccessfully, to reduce the cost of electricity, which he identifies as a major cause of inflation.<\/p>\n

AG:\u00a0<\/strong>What specific offenses are Petro, his family, and his Interior Minister charged with? Do they include not only failure to stop the drug trade but also direct involvement?<\/p>\n

DK:<\/strong>\u00a0 It appears that they are being accused of being part of some (imaginary) drug cartel and allegedly receiving money from this cartel.\u00a0 However, these claims seem to be based on the claims of one individual facing prosecution in the US for his own drug crimes and in return for some sort of leniency. The truth is that Petro has been fighting the drug cartels for his entire political career and is probably the cleanest politician Colombia has had as president in recent memory.<\/p>\n

AG:\u00a0<\/strong>How will you undertake their defense? Will you actually be in US courts?<\/p>\n

DK:<\/strong> The challenge to the Office of Foreign Asset Control (OFAC) designation begins with a detailed letter to the Treasury Department but will likely lead to court action to challenge the Treasury Department\u2019s decision.<\/p>\n

AG:<\/strong> I believe the three levels of the federal court system are district court, then circuit court, the first level of appeal, and then the Supreme Court.\u00a0 Are you prepared to appeal all the way to the Supreme Court if you don’t get just rulings at the two lower levels?<\/p>\n

DK:\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong>I\u2019ll go as far as President Petro wishes to go, but we haven\u2019t decided that far at this point.<\/p>\n

AG:\u00a0<\/strong>Petro has adopted a new strategy for eradicating drug production. He\u2019s focusing on rural development to create economic opportunity beyond coca growing and negotiating with armed groups. He\u2019s also pointed to the US market for illicit drugs that\u2019s driving the traffic, saying that producing states like Colombia shouldn\u2019t bear all the blame.<\/p>\n

Trump of course condemns this approach, but will you be bringing it up in your defense? Whether it\u2019s wise or effective policy or not, it indicates the will to stop the trade rather than tolerating, abetting, or even engaging in it.<\/p>\n

DK:\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong>Yes, Petro is fighting the drug trade through the most effective and nonviolent means at his disposal, and we will, of course, raise this in his defense.<\/p>\n

As the\u00a0Rand Corporation<\/a> demonstrated years ago, the most effective means of fighting the cocaine traffic is through treatment programs within the country consuming it \u2013 in this case, the United States. Indeed, it said that this is many times more effective than eradicating the drugs at their source (whether the source is Colombia or elsewhere). However, no US President or Congress has had the political will to try this strategy.<\/p>\n

AG:\u00a0<\/strong>What else would you like readers to understand about this case?<\/p>\n

DK:\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong>The sanctions against Petro are part and parcel of the US\u2019s attempt to impose its will on the people of South America and the Caribbean.\u00a0 This is a modern-day manifestation of the\u00a0Monroe Doctrine of 1823<\/a>, a doctrine that remains in force to this day. However, the region cannot be subdued as it has been in the past, and I believe this policy will ultimately backfire, but many will suffer in the meantime.<\/p>\n

AG:\u00a0<\/strong>Is there anything we can do to support you, the Petro family, and the Colombian people in this?<\/p>\n

DK:<\/strong> I would urge people to protest these maneuvers by the Trump Administration and to\u00a0contact<\/a> their Congressional Representatives to express their dismay at them.<\/p>\n

AG:\u00a0<\/strong>Thanks for speaking to\u00a0Black Agenda Report<\/em>.<\/p>\n

DK:\u00a0<\/strong>Happy to.<\/p>\n

_______________________________________________<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Ann Garrison is an independent journalist based in the San Francisco Bay Area. She attended Stanford University and is a member of the <\/em>TRANSCEND Network for Peace Development Environment<\/em><\/a>. In 2014 she received the Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza Democracy and Peace Prize<\/em> for her reporting on conflict in the African Great Lakes region. She can be reached at <\/em>ann@anngarrison.com<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 blackagendareport.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

29 Oct 2025 –\u00a0As part of his escalating aggression toward Venezuela, Colombia, Cuba, and Brazil, Trump sanctioned Colombian President Gustavo Petro, his wife, his son, and his Interior Minister for drug trafficking offenses.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":306395,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[867,3143,2642,1661,541,880,249,70],"class_list":["post-306394","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-transcend-members","tag-anglo-america","tag-anti-hegemony","tag-anti-imperialism","tag-colombia","tag-latin-america-caribbean","tag-state-terrorism","tag-trump","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/306394","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=306394"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/306394\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":306396,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/306394\/revisions\/306396"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/306395"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=306394"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=306394"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=306394"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}