Gustavo Petro, Colombian President: US military action is a real threat
The Interview
BBC
4.3 • 537 Ratings
🗓️ 16 January 2026
⏱️ 23 minutes
🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS
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Summary
I do believe US military action is a real threat, and the prospect of removing it depends on the ongoing conversations.
The BBC’s South America correspondent Ione Wells speaks to Gusatvo Petro, Colombia’s first left-wing president about his fears of US military action against his country. Petro, a former guerrilla fighter turned reformist leader, has been in office since 2022, championing social justice, environmental policies and regional diplomacy.
He responds to Donald Trump’s recent comments suggesting a military operation against Colombia “sounds good” and accusations that Petro himself is a drug trafficker—claims he strongly denies.
Petro warns that the United States risks moving from global leadership to isolation through what he calls “imperial-style behaviour,” following the recent seizure of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro by US forces. He also expresses his belief that Washington needs a fundamental rethink of power and diplomacy.
The Interview brings you conversations with people shaping our world, from all over the world. The best interviews from the BBC, including episodes with Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado and author Sir Salman Rushdie. You can listen on the BBC World Service on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays at 0800 GMT. Or you can listen to The Interview as a podcast, out three times a week on BBC Sounds or wherever you get your podcasts.
Presenter: Ione Wells Producers: Alba Morgade, Farhana Haider Editor: Justine Lang
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Image Credit: NurPhoto/Getty Images
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, podcasts. |
| 0:06.4 | Hello, I'm Ione Wells, the BBC's South America correspondent, and this is the interview from the BBC World Service, the best conversations coming out of the BBC. |
| 0:16.7 | People shaping our world from all over the world. Today we are spending trillions on war and peanuts on peace. |
| 0:23.6 | Wind power in the United States has been subsidized for 33 years. Isn't that enough? Solar for 25 years. |
| 0:29.7 | That's enough. I don't have army. I don't have missile rockets. I have my body. I have my voice. |
| 0:36.6 | I love singing and so my goal was always to do |
| 0:39.3 | better and better at it. I was still in an induced coma in hospital when the world was defining me. |
| 0:46.4 | For this interview, I met Colombian president, Gustavo Petro, in Bogota. Petro is Colombia's first |
| 0:53.5 | left-wing president, a former guerrilla fighter |
| 0:55.9 | turned reformist leader. He's been in office since August 2022, championing social justice, |
| 1:02.2 | environmental policies and regional diplomacy. His flagship policy was known as Total Peace, |
| 1:08.2 | a strategy of negotiating with criminal armed groups. But his critics, |
| 1:12.4 | including President Trump, think he's been too soft on crime and drug trafficking. In our |
| 1:17.3 | conversation, he expressed growing concern about U.S.-Columbia relations, saying he believes |
| 1:22.2 | there is now a real threat of U.S. military action against his country. His remarks follow comments by U.S. President |
| 1:28.9 | Donald Trump, who recently said a military operation targeting Colombia sounds good and accused Petro |
| 1:35.0 | himself of being a drug trafficker, which he has denied. About a week after Venezuelan President |
| 1:40.7 | Nicolas Maduro was seized in Caracas by US forces, President Petro warns |
| 1:45.2 | that the United States risks shifting from a position of global leadership to one of increasing |
| 1:50.1 | isolation due to what he described as imperial-style behaviour on the world stage. He also spoke about |
| 1:56.6 | a recent phone call with Mr Trump, as well as ongoing conversations with senior Venezuelan officials, |
| 2:02.1 | including Delci Rodriguez. The president reserved some of his strongest criticism for U.S. |
... |
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