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‘Sounds Good to Me’: Trump Signals Possible Military Operation Against Colombia’s Marxist Leader — Months After Gustavo Petro Mocked U.S. and Dared Arrest: ‘Try and See If You Can!’

January 5, 2026

Colombian President Gustavo Petro delivers a speech at the inauguration of the Multicampus University in Cali, with the national flag in the background.

Colombian President Gustavo Petro delivers a speech at the inauguration of the Multicampus University in Cali, with the national flag in the background.
Colombian President Gustavo Petro openly challenged the United States to try to arrest him in November.

President Donald Trump delivered a blunt and unmistakable warning on Sunday to Colombia’s far-left president Gustavo Petro, openly signaling that a U.S. military operation is not off the table.

Back in November, Colombian President Gustavo Petro dared the U.S. to arrest him, claiming that his people would rise up in his defense.

Petro, a former left-wing terrorist who is presiding over Colombia’s enormous drug trade, was a close ally of Maduro and has been left devastated by his removal.

“And so I have to tell Mr. Marco Rubio, brother, if you’re going to put me in prison, try and see if you can. If you want to put me in the orange jumpsuit, try it. But this people will not kneel before anyone. No Colombian is guilty of what happened to your grandfather or your father in Cuba.

Do not threaten us, for there is a jaguar about to awaken. Two centuries of going from war to war have taught us indigenous shrewdness. If the people freely wish to return to paramilitary rule, we have no choice but to obey. If they want to talk, let them come and speak as equals.

Tell the president of the Inter-American Development Bank that his money will not enter into Colombia’s elections. The people of Colombia are not for sale.”

Watch the clip below:

The head of state’s words are resurfacing now in a context marked by warnings from President Donald Trump against governments in the region, including Colombia and Cuba.

Speaking to reporters on board Air Force One on Sunday, Trump described Petro as a “sick man” whose days may also be numbered.

“Colombia is very sick, too, run by a sick man, who likes making cocaine and selling it to the United States, and he’s not going to be doing it very long,” Trump said.

“It sounds good to me,” Trump added when asked whether he would pursue a military solution.

Following Trump’s comment aboard Air Force One, Petro frantically tweeted out condemnation.

Petro wrote on X (translation):

“I don’t know if Maduro is good or bad, or even if he’s a drug trafficker; in the Colombian justice system’s archives, after half a century of dealing with the biggest cocaine cartels, the names of Nicolás Maduro and Cilia Flores don’t appear. Those who have come forward to denounce him are nothing more than Venezuelan opposition generals, trying to undermine the popular vote.

The judicial power in Colombia doesn’t belong to me; it’s independent of me and is largely controlled by my opposition.

If you want to know about the mafia and the cocaine trade, you only have to look at Colombia’s judicial archives.

That’s why I deeply reject Trump’s pronouncements of ignorance; my name hasn’t appeared in any drug trafficking-related judicial files in 50 years, neither past nor present. Stop slandering me, Mr. Trump. This is not how you threaten a Latin American president who emerged from armed struggle and later from the Colombian people’s fight for peace.

I was part of the clandestine organization that fought for democracy in Colombia against the civilian dictatorship of the “State of Siege,” the organization that in 1974, long before Chávez, carried out the operation to raise Bolívar’s sword once again—Bolívar, who said he would never sheathe it until injustice had ended in Gran Colombia. I was part of the M-19, which made the first peace in contemporary Latin America.

He doesn’t read Colombian history, and that’s why he’s wrong when he criticizes us. He only needs to meet with his expert drug investigators in Colombia, whom I have assisted with my own investigations as a senator of the Colombian Left and of its people, who have suffered genocide at the hands of drug traffickers and their political allies, who are also allies of the American far right.

Tens of thousands of our comrades in the armed and popular struggle for democracy were murdered, and we did not ask you for invasions. We endured and we won through peace.

I have never burned a US flag because I have read the history of the popular and workers’ struggles in the US through Zinn’s books in Spanish. And that is why I honor the American working class, the Black and Indigenous people, and the young soldiers who, with the Soviets, defeated Hitler.

And that is why I dared to speak on a street in New York in front of the United Nations building, under US law, which protects the right of those attending the United Nations General Assembly to speak freely. I spoke out against the genocide in Gaza. How I would have loved to accompany you to make peace in Gaza! The Palestinians there love me, and perhaps instead of going to capture a Latin American president with limited control over oil—because you blocked the oil supply, condemning people to hunger and triggering the exodus that reached your own country—I would have accompanied you to capture Netanyahu, a genocidal maniac.

Because of what I said, you arrogantly decided to punish my opinion, my words against the Palestinian genocide. Your punishment is to falsely accuse me of being a drug trafficker and owning cocaine labs. I don’t own a car, nor do I have any properties abroad. I still pay off my mortgage with my salary. It’s unjust, and I fight against injustice.

I have many friends in the US who stop me in the streets and embrace me.

That’s why I respect the history that emerged with Washington and Bolívar together; they gave each other gifts, they were liberators more than slaveholders.

I learned not to be a slave, and I reject your statements unilaterally assigning us to your domain. We Latin Americans are republicans and independent, and many of us are revolutionaries. Don’t think that Latin America is just a nest of criminals poisoning its people. Respect us and read our history, which dates back 30,000 years throughout the Americas. I read your history to understand you. Don’t see drug traffickers where there are only genuine warriors for Democracy and Freedom.”

Last month, Petro likened the Trump administration to a “clan of pedophiles” who simply want to exploit the region for oil.

“A clan of pedophiles wants to destroy our democracy,” he complaiend at the time.

”To keep Epstein’s list from coming out, they send warships to kill fishermen and threaten our neighbor with invasion for their oil.”

”Harsh, yes, but that’s the reality,” he continued. “And to keep the list from coming out they send warships to kill fishermen from this city.”

”They threaten the neighbor, talking about ‘dictators’ and so on, as if the people of Colombia would applaud an invasion of their brother which is not the president but the people of Venezuela.”

The post ‘Sounds Good to Me’: Trump Signals Possible Military Operation Against Colombia’s Marxist Leader — Months After Gustavo Petro Mocked U.S. and Dared Arrest: ‘Try and See If You Can!’ appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.