Donald Trump and his Colombian counterpart Gustavo Petro are in a bizarre and fiery war of words (Image: AFP via Getty Images)
President Gustavo Petro has launched a fiery and somewhat unconventional tirade against , accusing him of potentially causing the “wipe out [of] the human species because of greed.” The stinging and at times bizarre statement came after Petro declared he would impose a huge 25 per cent tax on US imports in response to following the country’s refusal to accept two planes carrying deported migrants.
Barely a week into his second term in office, ordered a series of punitive measures against Colombia’s government in response to its refusal, slapping escalating tariffs on the country as well as issuing visa bans to members of President Petro’s inner circle. Trump said these steps were necessary after Petro “jeopardised” ‘ national security by refusing the deportation flights.
“These measures are just the beginning,” Trump wrote on his social media platform Truth Social. “We will not allow the Government to violate its legal obligations with regard to the acceptance and return of the criminals they forced into the United States.”
After caving to US pressure over the deportation flights, Petro, a former leftist guerrilla, announced that the South American country’s presidential aircraft had been made available to facilitate the return of migrants who were to arrive hours earlier on the US military airplanes and guarantee them “dignified conditions”. Now both sides are threatening a with a 50 per cent mutual tariff set to come into effect next week.
President Petro slammed the US over race, climate change, and Trump’s attitude towards South Americans (Image: Getty)
Taking a Trumpian approach to international diplomacy, Petro responded on social media by expressing his disdain for travelling to the US, before making a cutting remark about race relations in the states. He said: “Trump, I don’t really like travelling to the US, it’s a bit boring, but I confess that there are some commendable things. I like going to the black neighborhoods of Washington, where I saw an entire fight in the US capital between blacks and Latinos with barricades, which seemed like nonsense to me, because they should join together.”
Going further in his lengthy social media tirade, the reports Petro recognising several American figures, saying: “I confess that I like Walt Whitman and Paul Simon and Noam Chomsky and Miller,” before remarking on historic immigrant labourers, “I confess that [Nicola] Sacco and [Bartolomeo] Vanzetti, who have my blood, are memorable in the history of the USA and I follow them. They were murdered by labor leaders with the electric chair, the fascists who are within the USA as well as within my country.”
Petro didn’t mince words about his contempt for Trump’s environmental policies either by lambasting the US, saying: “I don’t like your oil, Trump, you’re going to wipe out the human species because of greed,” he furiously wrote. The US president has been keen to repeat his administration’s policy on new oil licences in the days following his inauguration, repeating the slogan: “Drill baby drill.”
The Colombian leader went on to slam Trump’s perceived attitudes on race, stating: “Maybe one day, over a glass of whiskey, which I accept, despite my gastritis, we can talk frankly about this, but it’s difficult because you consider me an inferior race and I’m not, nor is any Colombian.
“So if you know someone who is stubborn, that’s me, period,” Petro declared. “You can try to carry out a coup with your economic strength and your arrogance, like they did with Allende. But I will die in my law, I resisted torture and I resist you. I don’t want slavers next to Colombia, we already had many and we freed ourselves.
“Colombia is the heart of the world and you didn’t understand that, this is the land of the yellow butterflies, of the beauty of Remedios, but also of the colonels Aureliano Buendía, of which I am one, perhaps the last.”
Colombians make up the fourth largest group of people immigrating illegally across the US border (Image: Getty)
“You will kill me, but I will survive in my people, which is before yours, in the Americas,” he added.
According to Petro: “They are the United States and before them I kneel, before no one else.” Petro states that should the American president try and silence his voice, “the Americas and humanity will respond.
“Your blockade does not scare me, because Colombia, besides being the country of beauty, is the heart of the world. I know that you love beauty as I do, do not disrespect it and you will give it your sweetness,” Petro concluded. “From today on, Colombia is open to the entire world, with open arms, we are builders of freedom, life and humanity.
“I am informed that you impose a 50% tariff on the fruits of our human labour to enter the United States, and I do the same.Let our people plant corn that was discovered in Colombia and feed the world.
“We are peoples of the winds, the mountains, the Caribbean Sea and of freedom.”