The U.S. Treasury Department on Friday designated Colombian President Gustavo Petro and several of his family members and associates, alleging his policies have fueled record cocaine production and benefited narco-traffickers.
The action, taken under Executive Order 14059, blocks any U.S.-based property and bars U.S. persons from dealing with Petro, his wife Veronica del Socorro Alcocer Garcia, his son Nicolás Petro, and Colombia’s interior minister Armando Benedetti.
“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,” U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said, adding that President Trump was “taking strong action to protect our nation.”
Treasury described Petro, a former guerrilla elected in 2022, as advancing policies that provided benefits to narco-terrorist groups and coincided with record highs in coca cultivation and cocaine output.
On Sept. 15, 2025, the White House determined Colombia is a major drug-transit or drug-producing country that is “failing demonstrably” to meet its counternarcotics obligations, Treasury noted.
Treasury also cited Petro’s “erratic behavior,” including the 2024 disclosure of confidential information from secure anti–money laundering channels that led to the suspension of Colombia’s Financial Intelligence Unit from the Egmont Group, and his alleged alignment with Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro and the Cartel de Los Soles.
The sanctions land amid a broader U.S. campaign against alleged narcotics networks in Latin America. The U.S. military has conducted airstrikes that officials say destroyed 10 smuggling vessels in the Caribbean and Pacific, resulting in 43 deaths, and this week flew B-1 bombers near Venezuela. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth ordered the USS Gerald R. Ford carrier from the Mediterranean toward the region, The Wall Street Journal said.
Petro, in turn, has accused U.S. forces of killing a fisherman and violating Colombian sovereignty in territorial waters.
Read more from the U.S. Treasury Department
Read more at The Wall Street Journal