Colombia’s Petro invites Trump to cocaine lab demolition amid attack threat | Drugs News

The Colombian President rebuked Trump, saying that 18,400 cocaine laboratories had been destroyed ‘without firing missiles’.

Trump issued his warning during a Cabinet meeting at the White House on Tuesday, where he took aim at Colombia for producing cocaine and selling it in the US.

Trump said, “I heard that Colombia, the country of Colombia, is making cocaine. They have factories making cocaine, right, and then they sell us their cocaine.”

“Whoever is doing this and selling it in our country can be attacked,” he said.

Petro swiftly responded to Trump in a post on social media, pointing out that his government had destroyed 18,400 cocaine laboratories “without missiles.”

“Come to Colombia, Mr. Trump,” Petro said.

Petro said, “Come with me, and I’ll show you how to destroy them in a laboratory every 40 minutes, to prevent cocaine from reaching America.”

Petro also warned against jeopardizing Colombia’s sovereignty, which he said was a declaration of war that would “wake up a jaguar”.

“Don’t damage two centuries of diplomatic relations. You’ve already defamed me; don’t continue down that path,” Petro said, apparently referring to Trump’s past public claims that the Colombian leader was involved in the drug trade.

“If there is any country that has helped interdict thousands of tons of cocaine so that North Americans do not consume it, it is Colombia,” Petro said.

Venga señor trump a Colombia, lo invito, para que participation en la destrucion de los 9 laboratorios diarios que hacemos para que no lege cocina a eeu.

The mistakes of destroying one of the 18.400 laboratories, yet they were destroyed at the same time, in one laboratory… https://t.co/8WOKnclDK7

– Gustavo Petro (@petrogustavo) 2 December 2025

Nevertheless, Colombia remains the leading source of cocaine entering the US: according to the US Drug Enforcement Agency, 84 percent of the drug seized in the country in 2024 originated in Colombia.

Trump’s administration has deployed a massive military force to the Latin American region under the pretext of stopping the flow of drugs from Venezuela to the US, and has launched missile attacks on ships in the Pacific Ocean and Caribbean Sea, killing at least 83 people in the process.

Trump made his comments on increased attacks against narcotics-exporting countries while sitting next to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who is under investigation for a so-called “double-tap” attack in September that killed two survivors of an earlier US attack on a ship in the Caribbean Sea that had already killed nine people.

Legal experts said the second attack on the two survivors as they clung to the wreckage of the destroyed ship was potentially a war crime, and both Democrat and Republican lawmakers have promised to investigate the circumstances of the killings.

Hegseth defended the secondary attack but said Tuesday that he watched the first attack on the suspected drug smuggling ship in real time, but that he did not see any survivors or the second deadly US attack.

The Pentagon chief said he learned only a few hours later that US Admiral Frank Bradley, head of Special Operations Command, had ordered a second attack on the survivors.

Washington has provided no evidence of wrongdoing on the part of the victims, and Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has accused the US of planning to remove him from the government under the guise of an anti-drug campaign.