Free Republic

Just hours after President Donald Trump cancelled all subsidies with Colombia and warned leftist President Gustavo Petro that he would be taking action against drug-trafficking organizations within the country if the Colombian president failed to deal with them, War secretary Pete Hegseth announced that the U.S. Military had carried out a successful strike on a drug-trafficking boat linked to a leftist terrorist group. “On October 17th, at the direction of President Trump, the Department of War conducted a lethal kinetic strike on a vessel affiliated with Ejército de Liberación Nacional (ELN), a Designated Terrorist Organization, that was operating in the...

One of President Trump's most valuable cabinet members, Marco Rubio, who wears both the Secretary of State cap, and the National Security Advisor cap, gets called on to perform a lot of duties. One of them is the equivalent of barroom bouncer. At the United Nations, he threw out the president of Colombia, Gustavo Petro from the U.S. premises. That was after a string of leftwing buffooneries and outrages. Two days ago, it was buffooneries: It should be noted that this was the assessment of Colombians who also believed he had not just been drinking but snorting cocaine. It ought...

BOGOTA, Sept 27 (Reuters) - Colombian President Gustavo Petro on Saturday dismissed the U.S. decision to revoke his visa and accused Washington of violating international law over his criticism of Israel's actions in Gaza.The U.S. said on Friday it would revoke Petro's visa after he took to New York's streets on Friday to join a pro-Palestinian demonstration and urged U.S. soldiers to disobey President Donald Trump's orders.Read about innovative ideas and the people working on solutions to global crises with the Reuters Beacon newsletter. Sign up here."I no longer have a visa to travel to the United States. I don't...

Leftists have long held no qualms about assassination against their rivals, and in Colombia, where narcoterrorism is also a problem and left-narco alliances are common, it has started up again.. But at least we have a secretary of state who is wise to what's going on. This week, Secretary of State Marco Rubio sent a high-level delegation to Bogota after a leading Colombian presidential candidate, conservative Sen. Miguel Uribe, died of his wounds in a June shooting by a criminal known as a 'sicario' or hitman who obviously had a sponsor. Rubio seems to know who that might be, though,...

Cocaine is no worse for your health than the common glass of whiskey, claimed the president of Colombia — the world’s biggest producer and exporter of the illegal drug. In a first-of-its-kind, six-hour live broadcast ministerial meeting in the South American country, Colombian President Gustavo Petro argued that cocaine is only illegal because of global politics — further claiming that it can be consumed as casually as alcohol, according to a report. “Scientists have analyzed this. Cocaine is no worse than whiskey,” the 64-year-old president said, according to CBS News. It is not clear what analysis the president was referring...

The president of the leading cocaine producer in the world said Wednesday morning that the U.S. strike on a Tren de Aragua drug trafficking vessel Tuesday was tantamount to “murder.” Colombian President Gustavo Petro said, in in a post translated by the Daily Caller News Foundation, that the pilots of the boat were likely “poor young people” and that the killing was unjust because the transporters weren’t the “big narcos.” Colombia is not only the world’s largest exporter of cocaine, but also plays host to some of Latin America’s most vicious cartels and militias. “We have been capturing civilians who...

President Donald Trump is not the man to play a game of chicken with. Colombian President Gustavo Petro learned that lesson Sunday in short order after choosing to test the newly re-elected U.S. leader's resolve. It all began when, as part of the Trump administration's expansive deportation effort, two flights of criminal Colombian nationals illegally residing in the U.S. were scheduled to fly back to their native country.

Is there some kind of implosion going on in Colombia?Hours after President Trump announced sanctions on the onetime ally for refusing to accept two planeloads of repatriated illegals after agreeing to take them, Colombia's far-left president, Gustavo Petro, now has massive street protests from the locals angry over the foolish fight he picked.🚨BREAKING —> Following today’s pathetic decision by socialist President @petrogustavo, the Colombian people are organizing massive protests demanding his ouster! pic.twitter.com/lfodJMicb8 — Rep. Carlos A. Gimenez (@RepCarlos) January 26, 2025The locals have very good reasons for being angry:.The U.S. imports 17% of its coffee from Colombia. But 40%...

Colombian President Gustavo Petro backed down on his declaration that he would not accept deportation flights from the United States. He now says he will send his presidential plane to personally pick up the deported migrants, a U.S. official with knowledge on the matter told Breitbart News. The Colombian president’s backpedaling came after President Donald Trump announced he would impose numerous sanctions—including “emergency 25% tariffs”—on Colombia in response to Petro’s reversal of his promise to accept deportation flights. On Sunday, Petro — who initially said he would accept deportation flights from the U.S. but then refused to receive two flights...

Colombian President Gustavo Petro on Sunday announced 25% tariffs on US imports, in a tit-for-tat move after US President Donald Trump hiked taxes on Colombian goods and sanctioned the country's leaders after Petro refused to accept migrant deportation flights. Writing on X, Petro initially said he would impose 50% tariffs on US goods, but later deleted the post and announced that he had instructed his minister for external trade "to raise tariffs on imports from the US to 25%."

Colombia's married president Gustavo Petro has found himself in an outrageous scandal after he was accused of cheating on his wife with a transgender woman. The leftist president's office has refused to comment on a video circulating online that supposedly shows Petro walking with Colombian newscaster Linda Yepes after the inauguration of new Panamanian president José Raúl Mulino on Sunday. The bombshell video, which shows a man and woman walking hand-in-hand before he stops to lovingly take her picture, has scandalized Colombia and the region, as reported by Telemundo. The president, who has been married to Veronica Alcocer since 2000,...

Colombia’s President Gustavo Petro, a former Marxist guerrilla and a vocal critic of the U.S. foreign policy, has embarrassingly folded to President Donald Trump’s strategic pressure, making a drastic U-turn by sending the presidential plane to collect Colombian deportees previously barred from landing. This move comes after Petro’s initial bravado in blocking two U.S. military deportation flights, a decision that sparked a fiery response from the Trump administration. President Trump, in a characteristic show of force, didn’t just criticize Petro’s actions but retaliated heavily by implementing severe economic and travel sanctions against Colombia. The sanctions included an emergency imposition of...

US politics the debate between the Vice-Presidential candidates... Credit ratings agency Standard and Poors lowering Israel's long-term credit rating from A+ to A... Late night attacks by Israeli warplanes in Lebanon... The recently appointed French Prime Minister Michel Barnier speaking about the need to cut spending... Russian Aerospace Forces in Syria hitting three jihadist bases... In the Ukraine War Russian troops advancing into the center of the town of Voehledar in the disputed Donetsk Region... Iran said it hit military targets in Israel...A Palestinian man killed in the Iranian missile attack... Dutch Party of Freedom leader Geert Wilders pushing for...

Colombian right-wing and centrist candidates obtained sweeping victories in Sunday’s regional elections, dealing a huge blow to the leftist government coalition led by President Gustavo Petro, the nation’s first leftist president. The Colombian electorate headed to the polls on Sunday to elect 32 governors, 1,102 mayors, and more than 19,000 other regional legislatures and public office positions nationwide, featuring over 125,000 candidates on the ballot. The voter turnout rate in Colombia was tallied at 59.08 percent, meaning 22.98 million of Colombia’s 38.9 million voters participated in the election.

Many protestors concerned about climate change stormed the stage where U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg was being interviewed Thursday in Baltimore. Buttigieg was in town at a daylong conference to discuss new transportation updates for the state. The conference, iMPACT MARYLAND, was hosted by The Baltimore Banner and intended to focus on the future of the state. In a series of posts on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, Buttigieg said the updates include an expansion of the Baltimore airport, converting the University of Maryland’s bus fleet to electric vehicles, replacing diesel trains with battery-powered ones, and updating a...

They were leaving a social event in the south-western department of Huila when their vehicle hit a road mine. They were then shot dead in the ambush, a police spokesperson said. It is the worst attack on security forces since former guerrilla Gustavo Petro was sworn in as Colombia's first left-wing president less than a month ago According to the national police and attorney general's office, three of the officers who were killed were aged 20 or younger. Mr Petro condemned the attack, calling it "a clear act of sabotage against peace" in a tweet. Late on Friday he travelled...

It turns out that President Biden is not the only president with a son in the news. Down in Colombia, recently elected President Gustavo Petro is getting questions about his son too. This is the story: Colombia's attorney general's office said on Friday it will begin an investigation into accusations that President Petro's oldest son took money from drug traffickers in exchange for including them in his father's peace efforts.Nicolas Petro, a lawmaker in Atlantico province, has said he has had nothing to do with the president's efforts to make peace or surrender deals with rebels and criminal gangs, and...

Several Republican former leaders from around Ohio are coming out in support of Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Tim Ryan as they condemn the actions of former President Donald Trump. Phil Heimlich, former Cincinnati City Council member and Hamilton County Commission member, described himself as a staunch conservative who looks to the polices of former President Ronald Reagan as a guiding principle. “Whether we're talking foreign policy, whether we're talking law and order, whether we're talking fighting extremism, if Ronald Reagan were here today, he wouldn't have anything to do with J.D. Vance. And I believe that we, as Republicans shouldn't...

Turns out Nicolás Maduro's still the guy the world has to talk to in Venezuela. But recognizing Juan Guaidó as the country's legitimate president is still a useful tool. This week Colombia’s leftist President-elect Gustavo Petro said he recently discussed bilateral issues with Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro — despite the fact that Colombia does not recognize Maduro as Venezuela’s legitimate head of state. But even top aides to President Biden are visiting Caracas lately to talk with top Maduro aides, even though the U.S. doesn't recognize Maduro, either. (On Thursday, the Biden Administration said it would make it easier for...

Ideas run the world. Good ones create freedom and wealth; bad ones, oppression and poverty. You are not what you eat, but what you think. Politicians in particular fall under the sway of ideas. As John Maynard Keynes put it, “Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influence, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist. Madmen in authority, who hear voices in the air, are distilling their frenzy from some academic scribbler of a few years back. . . . It is ideas, not vested interests, which are dangerous for good or evil.” The...