The US has placed sanctions on Colombia’s President, Gustavo Petro, accusing him of failing to curb drug trafficking and allowing cartels to “flourish”.
The decision is the latest in a growing diplomatic dispute between the Latin American nation’s first left-wing leader and his US counterpart Donald Trump.
The two have clashed over US strikes on boats it says are being used to smuggle drugs, killing dozens including some Colombian nationals. Trump has said other nations had failed to stop the boats, while Petro has accused him of “murder”.
Colombia was once a close ally of Washington’s war on drugs, receiving hundreds of millions of dollars annually in military assistance to counter drug gangs.
The US also trains Colombian narcotics agents – something the Trump administration has said it will continue to support.
But in its sanctions decision, it singled out Petro as having presided over a “disastrous and ineffective” drug policy that had led to a large increase in cocaine production.
US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said that since Petro came to power, cocaine production in Colombia had “exploded to the highest rate in decades, flooding the United States and poisoning Americans”.
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.
In his response, Petro said he had been fighting drug trafficking “for decades” and that his administration had stemmed the growth of coca crops.
“What the US Treasury is doing is an arbitrariness typical of an oppressive regime,” he said.
Cocaine production is currently at record-high levels in Colombia, according to researcher Héctor Galeano from the Colombia-based Institute of Advanced Social and Cultural Studies of Latin America and the Caribbean.
The US Treasury said that cocaine from Colombia was often purchased by Mexican cartels, which then smuggle it into the US.
The US says it is removing Colombia’s certification as an ally in the war on drugs, which grants it access to financial support. Colombia responded that it would cease buying weapons from the US.
Petro has insisted that it was during the government of his predecessor, Iván Duque, that the area planted with coca had increased.
He has also said that, in order for coca cultivation to decrease, what was needed was for demand for cocaine to go down in the US and in Europe.
His primary attempts to curb drug-related criminality in Colombia have centred on facilitating peace negotiations between warring cartels that have for decades brought violence to the nation.
His campaign promise of bringing “total peace” to Colombia appears to be collapsing, with mounting attacks and stalled negotiations.
Petro told BBC News in September air strikes on alleged drug vessels in the Caribbean were an “act of tyranny”.
He used a speech at the UN in New York around the same time to argue the attacks were not about controlling the drug trade but serving a need to use “violence to dominate Colombia and Latin America”.
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.
