At UN, Colombia’s Petro urges ‘criminal process’ against Trump for Caribbean strikes

Colombia's President Gustavo Petro gives a statement during a forum on democracy and multilateralism at La Moneda palace in Santiago, Chile, Monday, July 21, 2025. (AP Photo/Esteban Felix)

Colombia’s President Gustavo Petro addressed the UN General Assembly Tuesday to call for a “criminal process” to be opened against counterpart Donald Trump for U.S. strikes on alleged drug trafficking boats in the Caribbean.

Petro said unarmed “poor young people” died in the strikes that Washington said were part of a U.S. anti-drug operation off the coast of Venezuela, whose president Washington accuses of running a cartel.

Over a dozen people are known to have been killed in strikes on at least three boats in attacks UN experts have described as “extrajudicial execution.”

Swatting away concerns the killings are unlawful, Trump vowed at the same forum earlier Tuesday to obliterate drug smugglers.

“To every terrorist thug smuggling poisonous drugs into the United States of America, please be warned that we will blow you out of existence,” he told the assembly.

Trump has dispatched eight warships and a submarine to the southern Caribbean, and the biggest U.S. deployment in years has raised fears in Venezuela of an invasion.

Maduro has accused Trump -- who during his first term tried unsuccessfully to expedite the Venezuelan president’s ouster -- of trying to affect regime change.

Thousands of Venezuelans have joined a civilian militia in response to Maduro’s call for bolstering the cash-strapped country’s defenses against the U.S. “threat.”

Petro, whose country is the world’s biggest cocaine producer, has said he suspects some of those killed in the U.S. boat strikes were Colombian.

He argued in New York on Tuesday that Trump must be investigated for giving the order for U.S. forces to target “young people who simply wanted to escape poverty” while many cartel bosses live in the United States.

“A criminal process must be initiated against those officials who are from the United States. This includes the senior official who gave the order, President Trump,” Petro said.

The Trump administration last week decertified Colombia as an ally in the fight against drugs, but stopped short of economic sanctions.

The countries are historical allies, but ties have soured under Petro -- Colombia’s first-ever leftist leader.