'I'm not defending Maduro': President Gustavo Petro responds again to criticism for his rejection of US military maneuvers in the Caribbean

Amid deteriorating relations with the United States following its inclusion on the Clinton List, and as rumors grow that Colombia could become a new military target for the Donald Trump administration in its campaign against drug trafficking, President Gustavo Petro again defended himself against criticism for his gestures of tacit support for the Nicolás Maduro regime in Venezuela.

Through X, the Colombian president reacted to statements by Hector Schamis, a researcher and professor of political economy and democracy in Latin America, who pointed out that Petro's inclusion on the Clinton List - created three decades ago to hit the finances and money laundering of drug trafficking - would be related to his closeness to the Chavista leader.

" I don't defend Maduro, I didn't recognize his election , but even less do I defend an invasion of Bolívar's homeland; that would be the ultimate betrayal of the history and future of all Latin America and the Caribbean. Venezuelans will solve their own problems. That is the principle of self-determination of peoples," Petro stated.

The president's message comes hours after it was revealed that the USS Gerald Ford aircraft carrier, which the Pentagon ordered deployed to the Caribbean Sea and is the largest and most important in the US fleet, is already en route and could be near the Venezuelan coast within a week.

Although Gustavo Petro's government did not officially recognize Maduro as the winner of the disputed 2024 elections, it attended his inauguration and continued to enter into trade agreements with the regime. Similarly, it maintained a critical stance toward opposition leader María Corina Machado.

"I am not a friend of the policies implemented by the Venezuelan government because I do not recognize it. I don't go there. But I do not agree with violent actions," Petro asserted two weeks ago in Putumayo, at the ceremony marking the beginning of the destruction of war materiel belonging to the dissidents of alias Walter Mendoza.

Petro also said that Washington would be committing actions in the Caribbean that violate a recent resolution adopted by the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva that links drug policies with human rights.

"They launched a missile and more Latin Americans died, bringing the total to 27. This is the exact opposite of what the United Nations Human Rights Commission approved. The United States government refused to join the UN Human Rights Commission," he said.

Juan Pablo Penagos Ramirez