Colombian President Gustavo Petro used his farewell speech at the United Nations not as a reflection on his turbulent four years in office, but as a platform for an unhinged tirade against Donald Trump, the United States, and anyone standing in the way of his radical worldview.
In a rambling, nearly 40-minute address, Petro accused Trump of everything from racism to genocide, claiming U.S. strikes on drug-laden vessels in the Caribbean amounted to “murder” and even calling for criminal proceedings against the president. Never mind that those vessels were carrying narcotics headed for American streets. In Petro’s telling, the traffickers weren’t criminals at all, but simply “impoverished youth” with “no other choice.”
“Cuatro años después de mi primer discurso en la Asamblea General, creo que lo dantesco de la situación de Palestina, no me llevó a pensar que lo mismo o casi lo mismo podría ocurrir en el Caribe colombiano. Tiran misiles a personas jóvenes desarmadas en el mar, hoy caen sobre 17… pic.twitter.com/G4IILODQV6
— Presidencia Colombia 🇨🇴 (@infopresidencia) September 23, 2025
This is the same leader who has downplayed the bloody Tren de Aragua cartel — describing it as little more than “common gang delinquents” — and who has consistently defended narco-regimes in Venezuela and Cuba. At the U.N., he went further, insisting that most drug traffickers are actually “blond and blue-eyed” people living in Miami, even calling them Trump’s “neighbors.”
#POLÍTICA El presidente Gustavo Petro (@petrogustavo) rechazó el ataque de Estados Unidos en el mar Caribe y señaló que “los jóvenes asesinados no eran del Tren de Aragua, que nadie quizás conozca aquí su nombre, ni de Hamás. Eran caribeños, posiblemente colombianos, y si fueron… pic.twitter.com/kei8qKfbpR
— ÚltimaHoraCaracol (@UltimaHoraCR) September 23, 2025
Petro also indulged in some of the most extreme rhetoric heard on the world stage in years. He likened U.S. immigration enforcement to “Hitler’s concentration camps,” accused Trump of “chaining migrants,” and claimed that Washington and NATO are “reviving tyranny and totalitarianism on a global scale.” Then, in perhaps the wildest turn, he called for a global army of Asian, Slavic, and Latin American soldiers to “free Palestine.”
All of this came while Petro wore a pin of the “War to the Death” flag — a blood-soaked banner from Venezuela’s independence war that he has apparently co-opted for his own purposes. The symbolism was no accident: Petro was not making a sober policy argument but staging a theatrical display of revolutionary posturing.
#POLÍTICA El presidente Gustavo Petro (@petrogustavo) se refirió al grupo criminal venezolano Tren de Aragua, y señaló que “solo son delincuentes comunes agrandados por la estúpida idea de bloquear Venezuela y quedarse con su petróleo”.
“Mentira que el Tren de Aragua es… pic.twitter.com/dTmyxi7W2u
— ÚltimaHoraCaracol (@UltimaHoraCR) September 23, 2025
The irony, of course, is that Petro himself is a “decertified” president — his own words — after Trump’s State Department flagged Colombia for failing its counternarcotics obligations. Instead of addressing that failure, Petro lashed out, claiming Trump had “no human, divine, or mental right” to hold Colombia accountable.
“Por eso invito a las Naciones del mundo y a sus pueblos a unir ejércitos y armas, hay que liberar a Palestina. Invito a los ejércitos de Asia, a los ejércitos latinoamericanos. Ya sobran las palabras, es hora de la libertad o muerte, porque no solo van a bombardear a Gaza, no… pic.twitter.com/ihGLxI7g0U
— Presidencia Colombia 🇨🇴 (@infopresidencia) September 23, 2025
What Petro revealed at the U.N. was not a defense of Colombia’s sovereignty but a defense of the narco-state model itself. His speech was a cocktail of anti-Americanism, conspiracy theories, and Marxist revivalism — a parting shot from a man who entered office promising peace but is leaving behind chaos, soaring cocaine exports, and closer ties to the world’s worst regimes.
