Colombian President Gustavo Petro, a far-left leader who has taken a lenient stance on cocaine policy, announced Tuesday that Colombia is suspending all intelligence sharing with the United States until the U.S. halts its drug-trafficking strikes in Caribbean international waters.
Petro announced the move on his official Twitter account, citing a CNN report that unnamed sources claimed the U.K. had halted intelligence sharing with the U.S. to avoid being “complicit” in what it considers illegal American military strikes.
“All levels of law enforcement intelligence are ordered to suspend communications and other dealings with US security agencies. This measure will remain in effect as long as missile attacks on boats in the Caribbean continue. The fight against drugs must be subordinate to the human rights of the Caribbean people,” Petro’s message reads.
Se da orden a todos los niveles de la inteligencia de la fuerza pública suspender envío de comunicaciones y otros tratos con agencias de seguridad estadounidenses. Tal medida se mantendrá mientras se mantenga el ataque con misiles a lanchas en el Caribe. La lucha contra las… https://t.co/IZRWiL4s6t
— Gustavo Petro (@petrogustavo) November 11, 2025
Petro has fiercely criticized the U.S. deployment in Caribbean international waters and the strikes on drug-trafficking vessels carried out under President Donald Trump’s anti-drug campaign. Reports say at least 76 people have been killed in the strikes since September. Petro has accused Trump of “murder,” arguing the men on the boats were not traffickers but merely “drug trafficking workers,” a term he insisted on using in late October.
Colombian security experts told El Colombiano that Petro’s move will hurt Colombia far more than the U.S., noting Colombia provides “very little” intelligence while U.S. information is “crucial.” Intelligence expert Jorge Mantilla said the decision may appear to be a show of sovereignty, but it is “tremendously naive” and ultimately ineffective.
“Colombia stands to lose the most, considering that a large part of the intelligence cooperation schemes in which Colombia participates, such as the Egmont Group or the NATO cooperation framework, revolve around and are structured around the U.S. intelligence community,” Mantilla explained.
Defense analyst Erich Saumeth told El Colombiano that cutting off intelligence cooperation will undermine Colombia’s anti-drug efforts, since U.S. intelligence is central to the region’s strategy. He called Petro’s decision “circumstantial” and “not carefully thought out.”
“If the United Kingdom had not made that decision, it would never have crossed the Colombian president’s mind. And that, in a way, is an indication that there is no clear policy on the part of the Colombian presidency on anti-narcotics matters,” Saumeth said.
Petro, a vocal supporter of cocaine legalization who has claimed the drug is “less harmful” than sugar, has also faced accusations from former aides of struggling with drug dependency himself. Under his lenient drug policies, Colombia’s cocaine production has surged to record levels, according to the latest U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime report. Petro has dismissed the report, insisting its data was “artificially inflated” and urging the United Nations in September to “review” its findings.
President Trump pointed to Colombia’s skyrocketing cocaine production in a September report to Congress, labeling Colombia and several other nations as failing to meet international counternarcotics commitments. In October, he halted all U.S. payments and subsidies to Colombia, calling Petro an “illegal drug trafficker.” That same month, the U.S. Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) sanctioned Petro for engaging in or attempting to engage in activities that “materially contributed to, or pose a significant risk of contributing to, the international proliferation of illicit drugs or their production.”
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