Colombian President Gustavo Petro ordered all levels of the country's public security forces to halt intelligence sharing with US agencies on November 11, dealing another blow to relations between Washington and its historic Latin American ally. 

The directive suspends communications and agreements with US intelligence organisations until the Pentagon ends missile strikes on vessels allegedly transporting drugs in the Caribbean, according to Petro's statement on X. The Colombian leftist leader emphasised that counter-narcotics efforts must be subordinated to human rights protections for Caribbean populations.

The strikes have killed at least 76 people across 19 documented operations since August, targeting suspected drug-trafficking boats mostly off Venezuela's coast. However, analysts believe the US Navy buildup in the Caribbean far exceeds what is needed for counter-narcotics operations and is ultimately aimed at unseating Venezuelan authoritarian leader Nicolas Maduro. 

The US deployment in the Caribbean now reportedly exceeds 15,000 personnel, the largest military buildup in the region in three decades. On November 11, the USS Gerald Ford, the world’s largest aircraft carrier carrying more than 4,000 sailors and dozens of aircraft, arrived in the area.

Petro, who has called for US President Donald Trump to be investigated for war crimes over the strikes, referenced the death of Alejandro Carranza, a Colombian fisherman allegedly killed in the operations, telling a Latin American-European Union summit on November 10 that the victim "may have carried fish or cocaine but had not received a death sentence."

The decision threatens cooperation valued at approximately $400mn (COP 1.58 trillion) annually in bilateral military assistance covering training, equipment, maintenance and intelligence operations, according to documents reviewed by El Tiempo. US assistance to Colombia in 2025 was projected to fall below $100mn even before the intelligence suspension due to Trump's wide-ranging aid cuts, according to the Washington Office on Latin America.

Colombia's National Police Director William Rincón declined to address the presidential directive following a press conference on November 11, stating such matters concerned diplomatic rather than police affairs, La Silla Vacía reported.

Relations between Washington and Bogotá have deteriorated sharply under the Trump administration, which placed financial sanctions on Petro and family members in October over allegations of permitting drug cartels to operate. The US decertified Colombia as a cooperative partner in counter-narcotics efforts in September, marking the first such designation since 1997, while Trump has branded Petro an "illegal drug dealer" in public remarks last month.

The suspension follows decades of close security cooperation initiated under Plan Colombia in 1999. Colombian officials maintain that 85% of intelligence used by US interdiction task forces originates from Colombian sources, whilst Colombia accounted for 65% of global cocaine seizures last year. Historic captures, including drug lords Gonzalo Rodríguez Gacha in 1989 and Pablo Escobar in 1993, benefited from US intelligence support.

Defence Minister Pedro Sánchez told El Tiempo on November 9 that cooperation with US Chargé d'Affaires John McNamara remained intact, with anti-drone capability seminars scheduled for the coming week.

Meanwhile, in a similar move, the UK has suspended some intelligence cooperation with US forces conducting the Caribbean strikes, citing legal concerns that the operations amount to extrajudicial executions without due process, according to CNN.