In a year already marked by diplomatic shocks and saber-rattling, United States President Donald Trump has escalated tensions across Latin America with a series of confrontational moves and statements that have left many allies and adversaries alike scrambling to decipher his intentions. The latest flashpoint: a direct threat against Colombian President Gustavo Petro, warnings of military action over drug production, and the dramatic seizure of an oil tanker off Venezuela’s coast—all against a backdrop of deadly maritime strikes and a foreign policy that critics say is as unpredictable as it is aggressive.
It was December 11, 2025, when Trump, at a White House roundtable with business leaders, was asked about his relationship with Colombia’s leftist leader. His response was fiery and unambiguous. “He’s going to have himself some big problems if he doesn’t wise up,” Trump declared, according to the Associated Press. “Colombia is producing a lot of drugs. They have cocaine factories. They make cocaine, as you know, and they sell it right into the United States. So he better wise up, or he’ll be next. He’ll be next. I hope he’s listening. He’s going to be next because we don’t like people when they kill people.”
Trump’s words struck a nerve in Bogotá. Colombia, after all, has long been a key partner in Washington’s decades-old “war on drugs,” receiving billions in aid and military support. Yet relations have soured since Petro’s election as Colombia’s first left-wing president, with Trump and his allies accusing him of failing to tackle cocaine production aggressively enough. At a December 2 cabinet meeting, Trump went so far as to suggest military action: “Anybody that’s doing that and selling it into our country is subject to attack.”
Colombia remains the world’s largest producer of coca—the raw material for cocaine—with nearly 253,000 hectares (625,176 acres) under cultivation, according to United Nations estimates. Petro’s government, for its part, claims it has dismantled as many as 18,400 narcotics laboratories since taking office, shifting focus from punishing rural farmers to targeting the criminal networks that process and traffic the drugs. But that hasn’t satisfied Washington. In October, the Trump administration took the extraordinary step of decertifying Colombia’s anti-narcotic efforts, the first such move since 1997.
Petro, quick to defend his record, fired back on social media after Trump’s threats. “If any country has helped stop thousands of tons of cocaine from being consumed by Americans, it is Colombia,” he wrote on X (formerly Twitter), warning Trump not to “awaken the jaguar” by attacking an ally. “Attacking our sovereignty is declaring war,” Petro stated. He even invited Trump to visit Colombia and “participate in the destruction of the nine laboratories we dismantle every day.”
The friction between the two leaders isn’t limited to narcotics. In January, Trump and Petro clashed over a new US mass deportation initiative, with Petro objecting to what he called the criminalization of Colombian migrants. Trump responded with threats of steep tariffs, prompting a brief standoff before Petro relented. The US president has also criticized Petro’s “Total Peace” plan—a blueprint for negotiating with rebel groups—and personally targeted the Colombian leader by revoking his US visa and freezing his assets after a pro-Palestinian rally in New York.
Meanwhile, Washington’s military footprint in the region has grown ever more visible. On December 11, US armed forces seized a large oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela, alleging it was part of an “illicit oil shipping network” supporting foreign terrorist organizations by transporting oil between Venezuela and Iran. Venezuelan officials, according to BBC News, denounced the seizure as “an act of international piracy” and a “policy of aggression.” Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello accused the US of being “murderers, thieves, pirates.”
This incident is just the tip of the iceberg. Since September, the US has ramped up “Operation Southern Spear,” a campaign of air and naval strikes on alleged drug trafficking boats in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific. At least 23 vessels have been hit and 84 people killed, with some of the dead identified as Colombians. Human rights groups, including United Nations experts, have condemned the strikes as extrajudicial killings. The family of one Colombian victim, Alejandro Carranza, has filed a complaint with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, alleging he was killed in a September 15 strike.
Trump’s administration insists the campaign is necessary to stem the flow of narcotics and protect American lives. “This mission defends our Homeland, removes narco-terrorists from our Hemisphere, and secures our Homeland from the drugs that are killing our people,” Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth wrote on X in November. Trump’s son, Donald Trump Jr., echoed the justification, arguing that drug cartels “pose a far greater clear and present danger to the United States than anything going on in Ukraine and Russia.”
Yet, as The Atlantic points out, the rationale for the military buildup is anything but clear. The administration has not sought Congressional authorization for operations exceeding 60 days, as required by the Constitution. Critics note the contradictions: while Trump rails against Latin American leaders for alleged drug ties, he has pardoned more than 90 drug criminals during his two terms—including Ross Ulbricht, founder of the Silk Road online black market, and former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández, convicted in the US of running his country as a “narco-state.”
Some observers see a pattern of unpredictability bordering on whimsy. Trump’s foreign policy document, published in November, claims the US seeks “good relations and peaceful commercial relations with the nations of the world without imposing on them democratic or other social change that differs widely from their traditions and histories.” Yet the administration’s actions—threatening military intervention in Colombia, seizing Venezuelan ships, and hinting at regime change—seem at odds with that stated philosophy.
Political reactions have split along familiar lines. Supporters of Trump frame the strikes and threats as necessary toughness in the face of “narco-terrorists” and failed leftist regimes, accusing critics of siding with criminals. Columnists in conservative outlets have even equated narcotics with “weapons of mass destruction,” arguing that extraordinary measures are justified. Detractors, meanwhile, warn that the administration is bypassing legal norms, risking innocent lives, and destabilizing the region without a coherent strategy or clear endgame.
All the while, the human cost mounts. Since September, nearly 90 people have died in US strikes on alleged drug boats. Colombian and Venezuelan families grieve, and governments across Latin America watch nervously as the world’s most powerful military flexes its muscles at their doorstep. The only certainty, it seems, is that the region’s future—and America’s role in it—hangs in the balance as Trump’s unpredictable foreign policy lurches from one confrontation to the next.
As the year draws to a close, the hemisphere is left to wonder: is this the dawn of a new era in US-Latin American relations, or just another chapter in a long, tumultuous story?