Colombian President Petro Designated ‘Priority Target’ by US Drug Enforcement Ageny

Latin America Correspondent Jon Bonfiglio speaks to Darryl Morris for Times Radio. 

Transcript

Darryl Morris 0:00

In the meantime, Colombia's President Gustavo Petro has been named in two separate criminal investigations led by US prosecutors to look in into whether Petro had met with drug traffickers unsolicited donations during his presidential campaign in 2022, who'd been labelled a priority target, usually reserved for suspects that the uh DAA deems to have a significant impact on the drugs trade. Yesterday, the president denied all ties to drug traffickers and maintains that he never accepted funds during that campaign. Let's speak to Jon Bonfiglio, who's in Latin America for us. Um okay, we'll come on to sort of wide ramifications of this and how it how it sort of links us back to Donald Trump's intentions in the regions, in the region. Just give us the give us the backstory on Gustavo Petro and how the US have come to this determination.

Jon Bonfiglio 0:48

So um, I mean Gustavo Petro is himself um an ex-militant uh from the uh from the 80s, uh right in the middle of when Colombia was um right in the middle of its sort of de facto civil war, and he then moved into uh politics. He sort of renounced violence and then moved into uh into politics. So um uh and then from that point on, there have been ongoing sort of uh rumors, suggestions that some of those historic relationships that um that existed, because of course a lot of these um sort of militant groups were of course funded by uh by drug trafficking back in the day and continue to be to this day and age, um, that that um has sort of followed him to the presidency, and this is what's sort of been highlighted in the last couple of days by the US Drug Enforcement Agency, referring to him as a priority uh target target. Now, the situation in Colombia is highly complex and continues uh to be between, of course, the economies of cocaine and these militant uh groups, and it is highly muddy. So, to some extent, uh especially given the fact that Gustavo Petro has made peace, total peace in his uh in his term, a priority for his administration, it's almost no great surprise that he has had that there are allegations of dealings with um with criminal organizations and militant groups as uh as uh alleged by the indictment in the United States.

Darryl Morris 2:15

Okay, so how does that fit then into something that you and I have talked about a lot, uh Jon, over the last couple of years, which is Donald Trump's vision for the region?

Jon Bonfiglio 2:25

Well, this is this continues the strategy by the Trump administration to establish some kind of legal framework which would allow action against non-aligned political leaders of other countries, specifically, of course, in the Americas. We saw it with Nicolas Maduro in Venezuela. I mean, nobody is saying that Nicolas Maduro was a good guy, but was he what the Trump administration uh painted him to be as regards uh drug trafficking? Uh, that's uh doubtful. We're seeing it with the Cuban leadership uh at the moment, where there's sort of the scratching of the surface back into history to try and establish, again, an - in inverted commas - a legal framework for uh for actions, and um uh and it's now being repeated with Gustavo uh Petro in Colombia. It's also important to remember that I think that um he is Pedro is one of the international community's most vocal critics of Donald Trump, who's called uh US migration policies akin to Nazi actions. He's cited as illegal the bombing of alleged drug vessels in the Caribbean, off of the coast of uh Colombia, and has criticized the US's support of Israel's genocide in Gaza too. So um it's it's it's not a stretch of the imagination to uh to conceive of these charges as being a deliberate targeting of Gustavo Petro and his his sort of elevated vocal critiques of Donald Trump and the Trump administration in the United States.

Darryl Morris 3:41

And what do America actually have the sort of jurisdiction to do? If they decide, if you if you know this investigation prosecutors um you know did decide that he is guilty of the the things they accuse him of, what what options are open to them?

Jon Bonfiglio 3:55

Well they they don't have any jurisdiction in the same way as they didn't have jurisdiction over uh Nicolas Maduro in Venezuela, but that didn't stop them going in uh and and extracting him and then putting him on trial in in the United States. So uh there's definitely a a significant difference between um what one in the past might have termed sort of international legal uh frameworks and accords, and then how the US is is behaving and using force to uh to sort of emphasize its uh its targets, its policies and its aims in in the region.

Darryl Morris 4:29

And and okay, so what what of the person who's listening tonight, Jon, who says, you know, I understand the argument that we're sort of piecing together here, which is um, you know, Donald Trump's strategy in the region is to target leaders uh who are not politically aligned. He's made a huge amount. We we talked a couple of weeks ago, didn't we, about the Shield of America's summit, where he brought together um l leaders from countries who are sort of increasingly built in his his image, aren't they? Um and left out uh those like Mexico and Brazil who are not. One of the arguments that says, well that that that that is convenient if you want to see that, but this is also about protecting America's interests, it's about trying to cut off um, you know, it's cut cutting off channels that that are bringing drugs into the United States of America that that are putting America's security and health at risk.

Jon Bonfiglio 5:19

Yeah, I mean uh th there's there's there's little doubt that um I mean again Colombia is the world's biggest producer of of cocaine. I mean it it's um its cocaine economy accounts for an equivalent of just under five percent of Colombia's GDP, which is twice as much as petroleum exports, its largest official export. So so there's little doubt that that that does exist and that that that cocaine in particular does move up towards the the United States. The question is, is this policy making, would these drives to bring the individuals like Gustavo Petro um uh to justice in inverted commas actually a um uh serious and uh efficacious? The obvious retort would be to say, well, actually uh Colombia's significant problems and the the strength of the transnational criminal organizations of paramilitaries are actually uh at the end of um at the end of an American gun, which we've also spoken about on your show in the past, um Darryl, that almost all guns in the region are actually American uh guns too. So that there would be other um there would be other avenues open to limiting the um or controlling uh the violence and the production of uh of cocaine. And then as regards specifically whether whether Gustavo Petro is involved in uh in alliances or um or partnerships with again transnational criminal organizations, that is highly doubtful. And certainly as regard as regards um these indictments, no evidence whatsoever has been has been offered, which continues the standard operating procedure of the Trump administration as well. It is to throw something out there with uh scant backup.

Darryl Morris 6:55

Okay, interesting, Jon. We'll we'll come back to this uh and we'll speak to you again on it for now. Always insightful. Thank you, Jon.