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AMY GOODMAN: We begin today’s show looking at the U.S. attack on Venezuela and the abduction of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife. On Tuesday, President Trump announced on Truth Social the interim leaders of Venezuela had agreed to turn over between 30 and 50 million barrels of oil to the United States. In his message, Trump wrote, quote, “This Oil will be sold at its Market Price, and that money will be controlled by me, as President of the United States of America, to ensure it is used to benefit the people of Venezuela and the United States!” unquote. This follows earlier remarks by Trump that he plans to, quote, “take back” Venezuela’s oil.
In recent days, Trump has also threatened other Latin American nations, including Colombia, Mexico and Cuba. Speaking to reporters Sunday aboard Air Force One, Trump specifically targeted Colombian President Gustavo Petro and claimed, without evidence, that Petro is trafficking cocaine into the U.S.
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: We have a very sick neighbor. It’s not a neighbor, but it’s close to a neighbor. And that’s Venezuela. It’s very sick. Colombia is very sick, too, run by a sick man who likes making cocaine and selling it to the United States. And he’s not going to be doing it very long, let me tell you.
REPORTER 1: What does that mean? He’s not going to be doing it very long?
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: He’s not doing it very long. He has cocaine mills and cocaine factories. He’s not going to be doing it very long.
REPORTER 1: So, there will be an operation by the U.S. in Colombia?
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: It sounds good to me. Yeah.
REPORTER 2: Secretary Rubio mentioned Cuba yesterday.
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: You know why? Because they kill a lot of people. Yeah.
AMY GOODMAN: In a series of posts on X, Colombian President Gustavo Petro blasted President Trump, saying, “Stop slandering me, Mr. Trump.” Petro called on Latin America to unite against the U.S, saying the region risks being “treated as a servant and a slave.”
We go now to Cauca, Colombia, where we’re joined by Dr. Manuel Rozental, Colombian physician and activist with more than 40 years of involvement in grassroots political organizing with youth, Indigenous communities and urban and rural social movements. He’s been exiled several times for his political activities. Manuel Rozental is part of the organization Pueblos en Camino, or People on the Path.
Welcome back to Democracy Now!, Manuel. So, if you can start off by responding to these developments over the weekend? President Trump and the administration seize the president of Venezuela and his wife, bring them to New York, bomb both Caracas and other cities, 80 people are killed, and then says he’s setting his sights on Petro, the president of Colombia. Your response and how people are responding on the ground?
DR. MANUEL ROZENTAL: Well, first of all, Amy, thank you for having me.
The situation is evolving, but what is clear is that it’s not only Colombia or Cuba. The entire world should be very worried, scared about what is already happening — not what might develop, but what is happening. And what is happening is, first of all, Trump, with his national security policy that he launched in December, he has announced the takeover of the entire continent. This is his region. He’s appropriating this region. And as you stated, and he has stated, what — Venezuelan oil belongs to him, and that he’s made that very clear. Mexico is under threat. The entire continent is under threat. And as you all know, he liberated a drug trafficker from prison in the U.S., in the former president of Honduras, Hernández, at the same time seizing Maduro as a drug trafficker and bombing.
So, whatever is in his head, whatever impulse comes to him and the people that surround him and feed his impulses, which include Stephen Miller, Vance, Rubio, Hegseth, etc., are already and have already committed crimes against humanity and war crimes like bombing boats in the Caribbean and the Pacific. So, there’s a war launched in the world, and the U.S. has announced our territory is not only not the Western Hemisphere even, but the entire Americas.
Then, at the same time, China launched an exercise, a military exercise, against Taiwan. And Trump’s response was, “I’m not worried about that.” And we have the background of what happened before with Syria and what is happening in Ukraine. So, right now what we’re seeing is three contending forces, huge — Russia, China, the U.S. — and others, allies and not, that are actually taking over what they — seizing what they feel is their territory for pillage. And the risk is for everybody.
Within that context, one, President Petro is not a drug trafficker. President Petro has been a victim of drug mafias and their allies, not only in Colombia, but all over the world. President Trump and the people around him are closer to the money-laundering machine and the transfer of funds to the North from drug trafficking than is Petro. Petro, in fact, has denounced and opposed them. And Petro, yes, is at risk based on a lie. And the lie is exactly what you shared with us, that Petro is a drug trafficker. That is the global image.
But then, also — and I have to say this — that does not mean I am defending or one should defend the Venezuelan regime. The U.S. had no right to seize Maduro, to attack Venezuela, no right whatsoever. That doesn’t mean that there was an autocracy in Venezuela and that what is happening within Venezuela at the moment is that neither María Corina Machado nor the Chavista Maduro regime represent the majority of the people of Venezuela. And a new government is being established by Trump, from Trump, which is oil companies rule the country and the economy, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, Delcy Rodríguez and the other ones maintain stability and peace by repressing the people of Venezuela. The victims of all this for the moment are the people in Venezuela, of Venezuela, and the majority of the people in the continent.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Manuel Rozental, these threats of Trump against Colombia, actually the third-largest Spanish-speaking country in the world, far bigger than Venezuela in population — Colombia has over 50 million people. And could you talk a little bit about Petro as the president, his history, and how contradictory his trajectory is to what Trump is alleging against him?
DR. MANUEL ROZENTAL: Absolutely, Juan. That has to be clarified. One may agree or disagree with his policies, but President Petro for 30 years — he left the armed insurgency that he was part of, and actually a commanding part of, that actually was forced into existence because of the robbery of an election in 1970 by the elites of Colombia. They took an election that was won by a popular party, and then enforced people with the views that Petro shared into an armed struggle, the M-19. But then he promised he would never take arms again, he would fight for peace. And he has been consistent with that. Nobody can say anything else about Petro.
But then, as a member of Congress, Gustavo Petro was the single most leader in exposing the connections between Colombian government, the Colombian Army, paramilitaries and the drug trade. And his voice will never be forgotten for that, his dignity, the strength of what he stated, and actually the evidence he presented to the Colombian people. He was then attacked. His life has been threatened because of his defense of peace, democracy and his struggle against mafias, paramilitaries, etc. And then he becomes the mayor of Bogotá, and he’s removed from power by an elite machinery of mafias, that he was actually proven to be — that this was the case, and he was an innocent from what he was accused for. He was the mayor of the largest city in Colombia.
After that, and after proving that he was innocent, he has the largest, largest electoral base ever in the history of Colombia, and with that base, from that base, he becomes the president of Colombia. And he has seized more cocaine than any other government in the past. But not only that — and this is more important than how much cocaine he has seized — he has exposed the fact that New York City, Paris, Dubai are the centers of global mafias that are transferring millions and millions of dollars of money through drug trafficking from all over the world, and that they are the ones that control drug trade, including the Colombian production, transformation or export of cocaine to the world. So, money laundering is the key here, and these mafias are there. So, he has stated clearly, to stop drug trade, you don’t attack boats in the Caribbean, peasants in Colombia and the presidents of Colombia or Venezuela; you find them, the center of command, up there in the U.S., in Paris, in Dubai and also in the Cuban American Florida-allied representatives and Republicans allied with the Colombian elites that are attacking Petro.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And also, most Americans are not aware that Petro is about to leave office. He’s term-limited, and the elections in Colombia are just in two months. Why do you feel — why do you think that Trump has taken this point to target a man who is about to leave office?
DR. MANUEL ROZENTAL: Juan, thank you for reminding me. That’s a very important point. The fact is, at the end of his presidency, the majority of people in Colombia love Petro still — with mistakes, with disagreements, with contradictions, but most people love Petro. That is not the case with Maduro. Maduro pretends to be loved, but there is an autocratic regime there. Here, no. Petro has defended democracy. There are no human rights violations from the government. There is not a repressive regime. And social change in many areas has been at least attempted by the government, as I say, with mistakes and disagreements and in a state of a growing war.
But why is he being attacked now? Because Iván Cepeda, the son of a murdered member of Congress, and a lawyer — sorry, a philosopher, an activist, a member of parliament, a fighter for human rights, he is a candidate or pre-candidate for the left in Colombia. If there were elections today, Iván Cepeda would win in the first round. And he has vowed to continue with President Petro’s legacy, so we would even have a stronger left-leaning social democratic government in Colombia. And that is what’s behind this attack on Petro. The only way one can stop Cepeda and the left from winning again in Colombia, it seems, would be to do something dirty, which is condemn Petro, attack him of being a narcotrafficker and destroy the electoral process. It serves right into Álvaro Uribe Vélez’s mafias and all the former Colombian elites linked to U.S. power.
AMY GOODMAN: Manuel Rozental, can you describe, as we begin to wrap up, what’s happening on the border between Colombia and Venezuela right now, the tens of thousands of Colombian troops that have been deployed there?
DR. MANUEL ROZENTAL: Yeah, absolutely. That border is uncontrollable, and this has to be said. All kinds of trades happen through there, including cocaine passing through that border into Venezuela and, from there, to the global markets. That is a fact. But also, armed factions, such as dissidents from FARC and ELN, cross that border, back and forth, involved in drug trade. And the Colombian government broke a peace negotiation with ELN, the second-largest guerrilla in Colombia before, now the largest one.
And so, tens of thousands of troops are in that border, because, one, there could be an aggression from the Venezuelan side; two, there could be a massive refugee crisis of people crossing from Venezuela into Colombia; and, third, and mostly, because there is a war now between the Petro government and the ELN that is — has been involved in drug trade, and the ELN has vowed to launch an anti-imperialist, they call, war against the U.S. And in that context, the Colombian Army has to stop ELN and has to protect the border. That’s what’s going on.
AMY GOODMAN: We’re going to end with Colombia’s foreign minister speaking Tuesday.
ROSA YOLANDA VILLAVICENCIO: [translated] We have said that every country in the international order has the right to its defense, its legitimate defense. And our Army has the president of the republic as its commander, and its mission is to defend the country’s sovereignty. If that aggression were to come, the Army must defend the national territory and the sovereignty of the country.
AMY GOODMAN: That’s Colombia’s Foreign Minister Rosa Villavicencio. Manuel Rozental, I want to thank you so much for being with us, longtime Colombian physician, activist, exiled several times for his political activities, part of the group People on the Path, Pueblos en Camino. We’ll also do an interview with Spanish — in Spanish with him after the show and post it at democracynow.org.
Next up, we look at President Trump’s threats to seize Greenland from Denmark. Stay with us.
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AMY GOODMAN: “Harbor for Hard Times” by David Berkeley.
