Colombia has authorised joint military operations with the United States to target drug traffickers, US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth said on Wednesday, as Washington expands its campaign against drug cartels across Latin America.
Bogota “has already requested that the (Pentagon) join Colombia in its fight against narco-terrorism, authorizing joint military operations to destroy terrorist and terror networks,” Hegseth said at an anti-cartel conference in Panama, reports AFP.
“Aggressive and concrete steps like these exemplify the types of active participation, operationally focused, we want to see from our partners,” he added.
The move comes as the US military continues an airstrike campaign launched last September against alleged drug-smuggling boats in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific Ocean. The strikes have killed at least 215 people so far.
US President Donald Trump’s administration has not provided definitive evidence that the vessels targeted in the strikes were involved in drug trafficking.
Legal experts and rights groups have argued that the attacks could constitute extrajudicial killings, saying the strikes have apparently targeted civilians who did not pose an immediate threat to the United States.
Colombia’s newly elected President Abelardo de la Espriella has pledged to dismantle criminal groups that profit from drug trafficking as the South American nation faces its worst wave of violence in a decade.
The hard-right leader replaced leftist Gustavo Petro and has vowed to end his predecessor’s unsuccessful peace negotiations with armed groups while confronting “narcoterrorism without respite.”
De la Espriella plans to strengthen cooperation with Washington as part of that effort.
“Colombia is officially joining the Americas Counter Cartel Coalition,” Hegseth said in a post on X, alongside photographs of the memorandum signing with Colombian Defence Minister Jorge Mora.
Colombia has followed Peru in joining the so-called “Shield of the Americas”, an anti-cartel alliance led by Trump and comprising pro-US governments across Latin America, including Argentina, Ecuador and El Salvador.
The member states share information and coordinate their judicial and security forces to tackle transnational criminal activity.
De la Espriella, a first-time political leader who openly admires Trump and El Salvador’s Nayib Bukele, has pledged to intensify airstrikes against guerrillas and drug traffickers. He has also offered to host US troops on Colombian soil.
Known by the nickname “The Tiger”, De la Espriella plans to establish a military alliance with the United States and Israel to support his campaign against guerrillas.
His proposed “Plan Colombia II” takes its name from a multimillion-dollar agreement with Washington in the 2000s that sought to combat drug cartels and leftist groups.
The US State Department said last week that the Trump administration plans to work with Congress to announce “$1 billion in assistance as part of a security package to support” the new administration.
