Last Friday, President Trump greenlit an attack on yet another boat laden with drugs, running towards the US under the eye of US Southern Command.
But this boat wasn’t Venezuelan, as the others have been.
Rather it was connected to a dangerous group based in Colombia that Sec. of War Hegseth described as Al Qaeda-like.
That strike wasn’t publicly announced until this morning, a short time AFTER President Trump took to social media to call out Colombia’s President for being part of the problem.
Just before 9 A.M. Sunday morning, President Trump called Colombian President Gustavo Petro a ‘drug leader’ via a Truth Social post, holding him directly responsible for failing to curb that group’s actions.
And for failing to effectively use all the US funding that is given year after year, a good portion of which is intended to help STOP the narcotics exported from Colombia.
Besides issuing an ultimatum regarding further actions if Gustavo Petro didn’t start rolling up the fields of narcotics growing in Colombia…
But President Trump also slammed shut the spigot of American dollars flowing to Colombia.
Here’s the President’s post from this morning via Truth Social:
And here’s the full text of that post in case that’s hard to read:
President Gustavo Petro, of Colombia, is an illegal drug leader strongly encouraging the massive production of drugs, in big and small fields, all over Colombia. It has become the biggest business in Colombia, by far, and Petro does nothing to stop it, despite large scale payments and subsidies from the USA that are nothing more than a long term rip off of America. AS OF TODAY, THESE PAYMENTS, OR ANY OTHER FORM OF PAYMENT, OR SUBSIDIES, WILL NO LONGER BE MADE TO COLOMBIA. The purpose of this drug production is the sale of massive amounts of product into the United States, causing death, destruction, and havoc. Petro, a low rated and very unpopular leader, with a fresh mouth toward America, better close up these killing fields immediately, or the United States will close them up for him, and it won’t be done nicely. Thank you for your attention to this matter! President Donald J. Trump
Gustavo is pleading his innocence, and also that of the individuals killed in that deadly strike last Friday.
But President Trump has ordered the complete cessation of US funds to Colombia, and Hegseth’s announcement this morning didn’t agree with the Colombian President’s argument that it was just a family-owned fishing boat.
Here’s the announcement Hegseth put out an hour after President Trump’s jab at Gustavo, along with the declassified footage of the strike:
On October 17th, at the direction of President Trump, the Department of War conducted a lethal kinetic strike on a vessel affiliated with Ejército de Liberación Nacional (ELN), a Designated Terrorist Organization, that was operating in the USSOUTHCOM area of responsibility.
The…
pic.twitter.com/1v7oR879LC
— Secretary of War Pete Hegseth (@SecWar)
October 19, 2025
And here’s the full text of Hegseth’s post for easier reading:
On October 17th, at the direction of President Trump, the Department of War conducted a lethal kinetic strike on a vessel affiliated with Ejército de Liberación Nacional (ELN), a Designated Terrorist Organization, that was operating in the USSOUTHCOM area of responsibility.
The vessel was known by our intelligence to be involved in illicit narcotics smuggling, was traveling along a known narco-trafficking route, and was transporting substantial amounts of narcotics. There were three male narco-terrorists aboard the vessel during the strike—which was conducted in international waters. All three terrorists were killed and no U.S. forces were harmed in this strike.
These cartels are the Al Qaeda of the Western Hemisphere, using violence, murder and terrorism to impose their will, threaten our national security and poison our people. The United States military will treat these organizations like the terrorists they are—they will be hunted, and killed, just like Al Qaeda.
According to the United States, that ‘fishing boat’ is actually connected with the National Liberation Army, as Hegseth referenced.
Technically, that group is at odds with Gustavo’s government in Colombia.
But with money flowing to the tune of MILLIONS every year from the United States… there’s an awful lot of incentive to keep the status quo.
Which is why President Trump is claiming Gustavo is basically just looking the other way, while scooping up all those American greenbacks.
Meanwhile, Gustavo says he’s the farthest thing from a drug trafficker, according to this coverage of the situation from the
Associated Press:
The United States will slash assistance to Colombia because its leader, Gustavo Petro, “does nothing to stop” drug production, President Donald Trump said Sunday, escalating the friction between Washington and one of its closest allies in Latin America.
Hours later, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced the latest U.S. strike on a vessel that was allegedly carrying “substantial amounts of narcotics.”
He said the vessel was associated with a Colombian rebel group — the National Liberation Army, or ELN — that has been in conflict with Petro’s government. He did not provide any evidence for his assertions, but he shared a brief video clip of a boat engulfed in flames after an explosion on Friday.
Petro, who can be as vocal on social media as his American counterpart, rejected Trump’s accusations and defended his work to fight narcotics in Colombia, the world’s largest exporter of cocaine.
“Trying to promote peace in Colombia is not being a drug trafficker,” Petro wrote. He suggested that Trump was being deceived by his advisers, described himself as “the main enemy” of drugs in his country and said Trump was being “rude and ignorant toward Colombia.”
Trump’s latest broadside against Petro raises the possibility of an expanding clash in Latin America, where the U.S. has already increased pressure on neighboring Venezuela and its leader, Nicolás Maduro.
Colombia received an estimated $230 million in the U.S. budget year that ended Sept. 30, a drop from recent years that exceeded $700 million, according to U.S. figures.
As stated, Gustavo is pleading his innocence.
He hit back after the strike on the ELN vessel, essentially accusing the Trump Administration of MURDER on social media:
Funcionarios del gobierno de los EEUU han cometido un asesinato y violado nuestra soberanía en aguas territoriales
El pescador Alejandro Carranza no tenía vínculos con el narco y sus actividad diaria era pescar.
La lancha colombiana estaba la deriva y con la señal de avería…
— Gustavo Petro (@petrogustavo)
October 19, 2025
Here’s the English translation per Grok:
US government officials have committed a murder and violated our sovereignty in territorial waters
Fisherman Alejandro Carranza had no ties to the drug trade and his daily activity was fishing.
The Colombian boat was adrift and had its distress signal up due to an engine failure.
We await explanations from the US government.
That ‘explanation’ came in the form of President Trump’s Truth Social Post.
And that response primarily included an ultimatum, an end of US cash, and President Trump’s direct accusation that Gustavo only ENCOURAGES the cartel operations in Colombia.
That ultimatum includes the threat to go further than just coastal strikes against boats…
And to actually start taking out drug fields on Colombian soil.
Later in the day, Gustavo pushed back again as to the legitimacy of President Trump’s accusation about the boat — as reported by
Fox News:
Three alleged narco-terrorists were killed in a U.S. strike on a drug smuggling vessel affiliated with Colombia’s National Liberation Army, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth announced Sunday.
The “lethal kinetic strike” happened Friday in international waters at the direction of President Donald Trump, Hegseth wrote in a post on X.
Colombia’s Ejército de Liberación Nacional (ELN) is a Designated Terrorist Organization. Hegseth likened the Colombian rebel group to the Al Qaeda terror group founded by Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan.
Colombian President Gustavo Petro disputed that the vessel was affiliated with ELN, calling it a fishing boat that belonged to a “humble family.”
“The fisherman’s boat from Santa Marta was not from the ELN; it belonged to a humble family, lovers of the sea, from which they drew their food,” Petro wrote in a post on X. “What do you say to that family? Explain to me why you helped assassinate a humble fisherman from Santa Marta, the land where Bolívar died, and which they say is the heart of the world.”
“What do you say to the family of the fisherman Alejandro Carranza? He was a humble human being,” Petro continued.
If you’ll remember, it was only a few weeks ago that the US State Department basically kicked Gustavo out of the country after his address to the United Nations in New York.
While his UN speech was a vicious tirade against President Trump…
What really crossed the line and prompted the State Department to act was a speech he gave FOLLOWING his address to the UN:
Earlier today, Colombian president
@petrogustavo stood on a NYC street and urged U.S. soldiers to disobey orders and incite violence.
We will revoke Petro’s visa due to his reckless and incendiary actions.
— Department of State (@StateDept)
September 27, 2025
Gustavo had joined in with a pro-Palestinian protest denouncing Israel.
In the process, the Colombian President stood on an AMERICAN STREET and called on American soldiers to disobey the lawful orders of the American Commander in Chief.
Here’s a clip of that moment included in a Reuters video report that covered that story… so you can get a good feel for just how ‘CHE GUEVARA’ Gustavo is:
On top of US forces targeting the Venezuelan-based cartels, things are really about to heat up now that one of Colombia’s top rebel groups has entered the mix.
That widening conflict, I believe, is not entirely about drugs — but about the terrorism and state-sponsored threats being outsourced to our southern neighborhood, aimed directly at the United States.
As much as I want an end to all the ‘forever-wars’… and as much as we know about the CIA-backed agenda that has kept those wars going in order to line the pockets of the people who stand to profit from those wars —
There is a call being raised by former and current intel patriots to pay attention to the renewed upsurge in true Islamic terrorism aimed at Americans being funneled through Latin America by enemies abroad in a way that is sending alarm bells off in the White House and Congress.
I’m thankful those alarm bells are going off, but simultaneously worried of the danger of slipping back into the quagmire of those ‘forever-wars’.
More on that tomorrow — as I’m planning on bringing you some insight into what’s REALLY cooking up off the coast of Venezuela.
And why I think President Trump is seriously ready to intensify and broaden this conflict.
And as always, we’ll keep you up-to-date as this story develops both from within America’s cities… and in the waters where this conflict is starting to play out just outside our borders.
The post
<a href=https://wltreport.com/2025/10/19/president-trump-revokes-700-million-payments-drug-leader/#utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=president-trump-revokes-700-million-payments-drug-leader target=_blank >President Trump Revokes $700 MILLION in Payments to ‘Drug Leader’ After Strike on COLOMBIAN Ship, Issues ULTIMATUM</a> appeared first on
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