Colombia’s Petro says he is ready to ‘take up arms’ after Trump threats and Venezuela raid

Petro threatens resistance as US tensions rise

Colombian President Gustavo Petro said on Monday he was prepared to “take up arms” in response to threats from US President Donald Trump, who over the weekend ordered a military operation to seize the leader of neighbouring Venezuela.

Petro, a former guerrilla fighter who has faced months of insults and threats from Trump, made the remarks in a post on X, writing: “I swore not to touch a weapon again... but for the homeland I will take up arms again.”

Over the weekend, Trump warned that Petro should “watch his ass” and described Colombia’s first left-wing president as “a sick man who likes making cocaine and selling it to the United States.”

Petro, whose M-19 urban guerrilla group laid down its arms under a 1989 peace accord, has repeatedly clashed with Trump since the Republican leader returned to the White House in January.

The Colombian president has also been a vocal critic of the expanding US military presence in the Caribbean, which began with the destruction of alleged drug boats, escalated to the seizure of Venezuelan oil tankers, and culminated in Saturday’s raid on Caracas to detain President Nicolás Maduro.

Trump has accused Petro, without evidence, of involvement in drug trafficking and imposed financial sanctions on him and his family. Washington has also removed Colombia from its list of countries certified as allies in the US war on drugs.

In a long message on X, Petro insisted that his anti-narcotics policy is sufficiently robust, but stressed there were limits to how aggressive the military can be.

"If you bomb even one of these groups without sufficient intelligence, you will kill many children. If you bomb peasants, thousands will turn into guerrillas in the mountains. And if you detain the president, whom a good part of my people love and respect, you will unleash the popular jaguar," he wrote.

The Trump administration is close to the right-wing opposition in Colombia, which has high hopes of winning legislative and presidential elections this year.