President Gustavo Petro said on Friday (14th) that Colombia had committed to paying around $4.3 billion for a fleet of Swedish Gripen fighter jets, and made it clear that the country could be attacked “from anywhere” amid tensions with the United States.
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The Colombian government announced in April that it had decided to accept the offer from Sweden’s Saab, but did not disclose the amount negotiated, which at current prices is 22.7 billion reais, or the number of aircraft.
Petro confirmed this Friday during an event at a military base that there would be 17 planes. It comes at a time when Colombia is experiencing tense moments with Washington over attacks on vessels allegedly used by drug traffickers in the Caribbean and Pacific Ocean.
The leftist president asserts that behind these actions the United States is trying to seize Venezuelan oil and destabilize the region. Mr. Petro assured that the fighter group would carry out “deterrent functions” in the country and “strike against Colombia, regardless of where it comes from.” “In a turbulent geopolitical world,” such attacks “could come from anywhere,” he added.
Petro is one of Donald Trump’s biggest critics, calling him a “drug-trafficking leader” because of Colombia’s high production of cocaine. The Republican president also cut economic aid to the South American country and removed it from the list of allies in the fight against drugs.
The United States and France offered Colombia fighter jets, but Petro rejected these offers. Countries in the region are experiencing a tense moment after the Pentagon announced that the world’s largest aircraft carrier, the USS Gerald R. Ford, has arrived in the Caribbean, marking a new phase in the war on drugs.
Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro sees these tactics as a threat.
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