By Luis Jaime Acosta and Julia Symmes Cobb
BOGOTA (Reuters) -Colombia said on Monday it has recalled its ambassador from Washington after U.S. President Donald Trump said he would raise tariffs on the South American nation and stop all payments to it, intensifying a feud stemming from U.S. military strikes on vessels allegedly transporting drugs.
Trump also called Colombian’s leftist President Gustavo Petro an “illegal drug leader” on Sunday, which Petro’s government described as offensive.
Colombia’s currency fell 1.4% to 3,889 pesos per U.S. dollar in early trading on Monday.
“Daniel Garcia-Pena, Ambassador of Colombia in the United States of America, has been recalled for consultations by President Gustavo Petro and is now in Bogota,” Colombia’s foreign ministry said. “In the coming hours the national government will inform of the decisions taken.”
COLOMBIA’S LARGEST TRADING PARTNER
Trump’s drug leader comments marked a new low in relations between Washington and Bogota, which the U.S. president accuses of being complicit in the illicit drug trade.
Petro has objected to the U.S. military’s strikes against vessels in the Caribbean, which have killed dozens of people and inflamed tensions in the region. Many legal experts and human rights activists have also condemned the military actions.
Trump said U.S. financial aid to Colombia would be cut off and details about the new tariffs would be unveiled on Monday, but it was not clear what funding Trump was referring to.
Colombia was once among the largest recipients of U.S. aid in the Western Hemisphere, but the flow of money was suddenly curtailed this year by the shuttering of USAID, the U.S. government’s humanitarian arm.
The oil-producing nation currently pays 10% tariffs on most imports to the U.S., the baseline level Trump has imposed on many countries.
The U.S. is Colombia’s top trading partner, and shipments north account for 35% of the South American country’s exports, according to the Colombian-American Chamber of Commerce, while 70% of imports from the U.S. are items not produced in Colombia.
Colombia’s foreign ministry has vowed to seek international support for Petro, who first rose to prominence as a senator by exposing links between right-wing paramilitary groups involved in drug trafficking and corrupt politicians, as well as for the country’s autonomy.
Petro on Sunday condemned a new bombing of a vessel which killed three people, saying the boat belonged to a “humble family,” and not the leftist National Liberation Army rebel group, as claimed by U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth in his own comments.
“Mr. Trump, Colombia has never been rude to the United States … but you are rude and ignorant to Colombia,” Petro said on X. “Since I am not a businessman, I am even less a drug trafficker. There is no greed in my heart.”
Petro has pledged to tame coca-growing regions in the country with massive social and military intervention, but the strategy has brought little success.
Colombia, a big exporter of oil, coal, coffee, flowers and bananas, posted a $338 million trade deficit with the U.S. between January and July, according to government statistics agency DANE.
Investors from the U.S. invested $2.27 billion in Colombia in the first half of the year, according to central bank figures, some 34% of total foreign investment received during that period.
(Reporting by Luis Jaime Acosta and Julia Symmes Cobb; Additional reporting by Nelson Bocanegra; Editing by Hugh Lawson and Paul Simao)
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