Colombian President Gustavo Petro slammed U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth Over the country's latest strike on a vessel off the Venezuelan coast on Friday.
In a social media publication, Petro responded to Hegseth's announcement of the strike, in which he claimed the U.S. had directed a "lethal, kinetic strike on a narco-trafficking vessel."
"No, Mr. War Secretary, the young men who are on those boats are not narco-terrorists, they are poor young men from the Caribbean islands trying to survive. By bombing them with missiles like in Gaza, you are murdering the Caribbean people," Petro said.
Está operación que hacen ustedes: estadounidenses, la hacemos a diario los colombianos pero sin misiles.
— Gustavo Petro (@petrogustavo) October 4, 2025
Incautamos centenares de toneladas de cocaína, mucho más que lo que hacen las naves de guerra estadounidenses, sin matar a nadie.
No señor secretario de guerra, los jóvenes… https://t.co/WuhL040gyM
He went on to claim that what the Trump administration really wants is "Venezuela and Guyana's oil, that's it."
"The use of anti-economic and murderous missiles has another goal. You want to harass us to get the oil for free," Petro added.
Hegseth has not replied to Petro's publication. On Friday, he detailed that four people were killed in the strike, which was conducted "just off the coast of Venezuela while the vessel was transporting substantial amounts of narcotics - headed to America to poison our people."
"Our intelligence, without a doubt, confirmed that this vessel was trafficking narcotics, the people onboard were narco-terrorists, and they were operating on a known narco-trafficking transit route. These strikes will continue until the attacks on the American people are over!!!!" Hegseth concluded.
The new strike comes as the Trump administration continues to ramp up pressure on Venezuela's authoritarian government. On Wednesday, Trump declared cartels as unlawful combatants and said the U.S. is now in a "non-international armed conflict" with them.
Moreover, Venezuelan Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino Lopez claimed on Thursday that five U.S. jets approached the country's coastline on Thursday, an action he described as "military harassment."
"I am denouncing this military harassment in front of the world," the official said in a televised address. "This is a great threat."
Padrino didn't specify where the incident took place nor if the country's authoritarian government will respond to the sorties.
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