Rubio Signals Colombia Ties Will Outlast Petro’s “Unusual” Presidency
Key Points
- Rubio described Colombia’s president as “an unusual” figure and later as “unstable,” but said the U.S.–Colombia relationship will not be damaged by any one leader.
- He framed transnational narco-linked “terrorist criminal” groups as the hemisphere’s top security threat, driving violence from Colombia to Mexico and Central America.
- He portrayed a widening regional alignment on security cooperation, while casting Venezuela as the central outlier for allegedly hosting guerrillas and facilitating drug routes.
Marco Rubio used his year-end press conference to draw a hard line between governments and institutions.
On Colombia, he offered a blunt assessment of President Gustavo Petro—calling him “una persona inusual” in Spanish and later referring to “the pronouncements of an unstable individual.” But Rubio’s main message was not about Petro. It was about continuity.
“We’re not going to allow the actions of a president, who in the end, his term ends soon, to damage the relationship,” Rubio said, describing a partnership built over decades across commerce, diplomacy, and especially military and security ties.
The emphasis was institutional: cooperation with Colombia’s security teams, links with lawmakers, and ties with mayors and local officials. The implied bet is that Colombia’s state apparatus, not the president’s rhetoric, is what keeps joint operations moving.
Rubio Signals Colombia Ties Will Outlast Petro’s “Unusual” Presidency
Rubio then widened the lens to his core hemispheric claim: the most serious threat in the Western Hemisphere is not a rival superpower but transnational criminal networks he characterized as “terrorist” groups, with narco-trafficking at the center.
He linked these networks to violence patterns across the region, including Ecuador, Mexico, and Central America, and argued that many governments are now treating this as a shared emergency.
In Spanish, he ticked through partners he said are cooperating with Washington’s security agenda, including Panama, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, and the Dominican Republic.
He praised Mexico’s current security effort as the most intensive in its history, while conceding “there’s a lot more to do.”
He also pointed to parallel maritime operations in the Pacific and to plans for an anti-gang stability force in Haiti as part of the same strategy. Venezuela, in Rubio’s telling, is why this approach has urgency.
He called the Maduro government illegitimate and alleged that ELN and FARC dissident elements operate openly from Venezuelan territory, alongside drug trafficking routes through the Caribbean that he said destabilize multiple countries.
He also claimed the regime cooperates with actors linked to Iran and Hezbollah. The political subtext was clear: Rubio expects more governments to move into Washington’s security orbit, naming Bolivia and Chile as likely additions, while highlighting existing friendships with Paraguay and Argentina.
The story behind the story is that the U.S. is trying to lock in a hemisphere-wide security architecture that can survive leadership swings—starting with Colombia, even when the president is the problem.
Watch the press conference by clicking here.