Colombian President Gustavo Petro publicly ordered the military to stop sharing information with the U.S. government on Tuesday in response to U.S. military strikes against suspected smuggling boats in the Caribbean Sea. And Britain privately did the same over a month ago, according to a CNN report published the same day. Both countries have been happy to cooperate with Washington against drug trafficking, but think that the decision to kill the suspected smugglers at sea is a step too far.
At least one of the people killed in the boat bombings was a Colombian citizen. "He may have been carrying fish, or he may have been carrying cocaine, but he had not been sentenced to death," Petro said in a speech on Sunday, according to the Associated Press. "There was no need to murder him." After Petro criticized the U.S. military campaign last month, the U.S. Treasury accused Petro of being complicit in drug smuggling and imposed financial sanctions on him, his wife, and his son.
