The United States government added Colombia’s President Gustavo Petro and Interior Minister Armando Benedetti on a Treasury Department blacklist meant for drug traffickers.

In a press release , Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent justified the move by claiming that “Petro has allowed drug cartels to flourish and refused to stop this activity.”

Bessent falsely claimed that “since President Gustavo Petro came to power, cocaine production in Colombia has exploded to the highest rate in decades, flooding the United States and poisoning Americans.”

Cocaine production in Colombia soared under former President Ivan Duque, whose 2018 campaign was financed by drug traffickers from the Caribbean region.

Duque was a strong ally of the first Trump administration while Petro has criticized the US president’s complicity in a genocide in Palestine and orders to assassinate fishermen in the Caribbean on multiple occasions.

According to the Treasury Department, however, Petro is sanctioned for “having engaged in, or attempted to engage in, activities or transactions that have materially contributed to, or pose a significant risk of materially contributing to, the international proliferation of illicit drugs or their means of production.”

Today, President Trump is taking strong action to protect our nation and make clear that we will not tolerate the trafficking of drugs into our nation.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent

The sanctions of the Office of Foreign Assets Control list bars US companies from doing business with blacklisted people and companies.

In a response, Petro said that “the threat of [US Senator] Bernie Moreno was carried out.”

Fighting drug trafficking effectively for decades brings me this measure from the government of the society that we have helped so much to stop cocaine consumption.

President Gustavo Petro

The family of Moreno, who was born in Colombia, has been accused by the president of laundering money for drug traffickers and has been implicated in major financial crimes in both Colombia and Ecuador.

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Bernie Moreno???s older brother laundered Bogota Cartel money, says Petro

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Petro’s investigation into alleged Moreno family rackets was part of wider investigations into ties between Colombian elites and drug trafficking paramilitary groups that would ultimately lead to the imprisonment of more than 70 congressmen and governors.

Petro said that US human rights lawyer Dan Kovalik would represent the president in an attempt to lift the sanctions that followed escalated tensions over Trump’s orders to bomb fishing boats suspected of trafficking drugs in the Caribbean Sea and the Pacific Ocean.