Colombia’s leader asked US President Joe Biden for more military aid to fight cocaine smuggling, as his government pledges a new approach in the fight against drugs.
(Bloomberg) — Colombia’s leader asked US President Joe Biden for more military aid to fight cocaine smuggling, as his government pledges a new approach in the fight against drugs.
Speaking outside the White House following a meeting with Biden, President Gustavo Petro said that rather than spray illegal crops grown by poor farmers, his government would focus on attacking traffickers, via intelligence work and interception of drug shipments.
“I asked for a bit more help on this front,” Petro said. “We need more ships, more speed boats and more drones.”
Petro, Colombia’s first leftist president, has repeatedly slammed Washington’s war on drugs as a failure that has brought violence to Latin America without curbing addiction and overdoses in the US.
The US has long backed Colombia’s efforts to dig up illegal crops by hand or, until a cancer scare in 2015, spray them with herbicides from the air. In the first two months of the year, Colombian eradication of coca, the raw material for making cocaine, fell by 93% from a year earlier.
The US has provided Colombia with more than $10 billion in aid since U.S. President Bill Clinton launched the Plan Colombia counter-narcotics program more than two decades ago.
Read more: The Golden Age of Cocaine Is Happening Right Now
Speaking alongside Petro before their meeting, Biden said that Washington and Bogota are working together to fight drug trafficking.
Climate Hurricane
Petro also said that oil, coal and natural gas are a “hurricane” threatening the existence of humankind. His government has pledged to phase out fossil fuel use.
Read more: Colombia Seeks Biden’s Support for Radical New Policy on Drugs
Next week, Petro is hosting a conference on Venezuela in Bogota. He said he proposed that this, and subsequent talks in Mexico, focus on setting an electoral calendar with guarantees, the re-entry of Venezuela into the OAS’s commission on human rights and the gradual removal of sanctions.
(Adds Petro’s comments on drug war from first paragraph.)
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