In a move that has sent shockwaves through diplomatic circles across the Americas, the United States Treasury on October 24, 2025, imposed sweeping sanctions on Colombian President Gustavo Petro, his wife Veronica Alcocer, their eldest son Nicolas, and Interior Minister Armando Benedetti. The sanctions, announced by Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, ban the four from traveling to the US and freeze any American assets they may hold. The decision, described by many as unprecedented, marks a dramatic rupture in the decades-old alliance between Washington and Bogotá, and comes after months of escalating personal and political friction between President Donald Trump and President Petro.
The US government’s rationale for the sanctions is blunt. "President Petro has allowed drug cartels to flourish and refused to stop this activity," Bessent claimed in a statement reported by multiple outlets, including AFP and the Associated Press. The Treasury’s sanctions list is typically reserved for drug kingpins, terror operatives, and dictators accused of egregious human rights abuses. To see a sitting leader of one of America’s closest regional allies, along with his immediate family and a senior cabinet member, added to this list is, as many analysts have noted, virtually without precedent.
The backdrop to this diplomatic rupture is a series of policy disagreements and personal clashes between Trump and Petro. Since taking office in 2022, Petro has charted a new course in Colombia’s long-running battle with cocaine trafficking. Rather than continuing the aggressive military campaigns favored by previous administrations, he has prioritized negotiations with armed groups involved in the cocaine trade and sought to encourage coca growers—the farmers who cultivate the raw material for cocaine—to switch to alternative crops. Critics in Washington, however, argue that this approach has emboldened cartels and guerrilla groups, allowing them to seize territory and ramp up cocaine production, much of which is ultimately destined for the US market.
Petro’s son Nicolas faces his own legal troubles, accused of accepting money from an alleged drug trafficker for his father’s campaign. However, as both the Associated Press and AFP point out, the case remains undecided in court, and the Trump administration has provided no evidence directly linking the Colombian president or his family to drug trafficking.
The announcement of the sanctions was met with immediate and fiery responses from Bogotá. At a rally on Bolivar Square, Petro addressed his supporters defiantly: "We do not kneel. We will not step back." Echoing the rhetoric of Latin American revolutionaries, he added on social media, "Not one step back and never on our knees." Interior Minister Armando Benedetti was even more direct, declaring, "This proves that every empire is unjust. For the US, a nonviolent statement is the same as being a drug trafficker. Gringos go home."
Petro has not limited his response to rhetoric. He has named an attorney to represent him in the US and vowed to defend himself and his family in American courts. "Against the calumnies that high-ranking officials have hurled at me on US soil, I will defend myself judicially with American lawyers in the US courts," he wrote on X (formerly Twitter), pointedly referencing the accusations made by US officials, though without naming Trump directly.
The diplomatic spat has also spilled over into broader US-Colombian relations. The US, which has long considered Colombia its chief ally in South America and the top recipient of American assistance in the region, has now added the country to a list of nations failing to cooperate in the drug war for the first time in almost three decades. According to the Associated Press, US aid to Colombia is expected to decrease by at least 20%, with the fiscal year that ended September 30, 2025, seeing $230 million in aid—down from more than $700 million in recent years.
President Trump, for his part, has not shied away from escalating the rhetoric. Referring to Petro in recent days as "an illegal drug leader," Trump told reporters in the Oval Office, "He’s a guy that is making a lot of drugs. He better watch it, or we’ll take very serious action against him and his country." Trump has also threatened to impose tariffs on Colombian exports and has already frozen hundreds of millions of dollars in aid to the country. Before the sanctions were formally announced, Trump had stripped Petro of his US visa, a move that was followed by the State Department revoking the Colombian president’s visa when he attended the UN General Assembly in New York, reportedly because Petro had called on US soldiers to disobey Trump’s orders.
The military dimension of the dispute is equally fraught. In the past two months, the US has destroyed 10 vessels and killed at least 43 people in strikes off the coast of South America, according to AFP tallies based on US figures. Many of these strikes have targeted boats the US claims were carrying drugs, and several have occurred in or near Venezuelan waters. The Venezuelan government, itself no stranger to US sanctions, has called the measures against Petro "illegal, illegitimate, and neocolonial actions that violate international law and the Charter of the United Nations."
Petro has been an outspoken critic of these military operations, labeling them "extrajudicial killings" and using a recent trip to New York to publicly call on US soldiers to refuse Trump’s orders. His opposition to US military flights deporting migrants back to Colombia further fueled tensions, prompting Trump to threaten tariffs on Colombian goods.
While Washington’s critics at home and abroad have accused the Trump administration of overreach and a disregard for international norms, supporters argue that strong action was necessary to stem the flow of cocaine into the United States and to send a message to other regional leaders. As the Associated Press notes, the addition of Colombia to the US list of non-cooperating countries is a dramatic reversal of decades of partnership and signals a new, more confrontational era in hemispheric relations.
As the dust settles, it’s clear that the fallout from these sanctions will reverberate far beyond the halls of power in Washington and Bogotá. With aid slashed, diplomatic ties frayed, and both leaders digging in their heels, the future of US-Colombian cooperation—long a linchpin of regional security and anti-narcotics efforts—has rarely looked so uncertain.
