{"id":42692,"date":"2026-08-13T07:45:46","date_gmt":"2026-08-13T02:45:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=42692"},"modified":"2026-08-13T07:45:46","modified_gmt":"2026-08-13T02:45:46","slug":"hegseth-says-colombias-new-president-has-requested-u-s-collaboration-in-anti-drug-efforts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=42692","title":{"rendered":"Hegseth says Colombia\u2019s new president has requested U.S. collaboration in anti-drug efforts"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><script>\r\n  atOptions = {\r\n    'key' : '644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6',\r\n    'format' : 'iframe',\r\n    'height' : 90,\r\n    'width' : 728,\r\n    'params' : {}\r\n  };\r\n<\/script>\r\n<script src=\"https:\/\/www.highperformanceformat.com\/644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<br \/>\n<br \/><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/twt-thumbs.washtimes.com\/media\/image\/2026\/08\/12\/Panama_U.S._48682_s1440x962.jpg?3508889e403e1da44972d8b607e807d3c73ebd80\" \/><\/p>\n<div>\n<p>PANAMA CITY \u2014 U.S. Defense Secretary <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtontimes.com\/topics\/pete-hegseth\/\">Pete Hegseth<\/a> on Wednesday said the recently inaugurated government of Colombian President <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtontimes.com\/topics\/abelardo-de-la-espriella\/\">Abelardo de la Espriella<\/a> has requested U.S. collaboration in joint military operations in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtontimes.com\/topics\/colombia\/\">Colombia<\/a> to combat \u201cnarco-terrorism.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>During a meeting of the so-called Americas Counter-Cartel Coalition in Panama, Hegseth said <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtontimes.com\/topics\/colombia\/\">Colombia<\/a> would also join the \u201cShield of the Americas\u201d initiative, becoming its 19th member. The initiative emerged from a March summit with U.S. President <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtontimes.com\/topics\/donald-trump\/\">Donald Trump<\/a> and Latin American countries that sought to join forces in fighting drug cartels. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtontimes.com\/topics\/colombia\/\">Colombia\u2019s<\/a> then-President Gustavo Petro was not invited to that meeting.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThrough the newly inaugurated president, as our president likes to say, President El Tigre, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtontimes.com\/topics\/colombia\/\">Colombia<\/a> has already requested that the Department of War join <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtontimes.com\/topics\/colombia\/\">Colombia<\/a> in its fight against narco-terrorism, authorizing joint military operations to destroy terrorists and terror networks,\u201d Hegseth said.<\/p>\n<p>The government of de la Espriella, who was sworn in last week and is known as \u201cThe Tigr\u201d or \u201cEl Tigre,\u201d did not immediately comment on the announcement in Panama. But the conservative leader has previously said his administration would join the U.S. initiative.<\/p>\n<p>Separately, Hegseth urged the Latin American countries at the meeting not to recognize the International Criminal Court, or ICC. The U.S. under Trump has carried out military strikes against suspected drug traffickers in the region, which have raised questions about their legality.<\/p>\n<p>Hegseth argued that such efforts \u201care entirely legal under international humanitarian law.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>It remains unclear from Hegseth\u2019s statements what measures, if any, the international court has taken to hinder U.S. operations in the region.<\/p>\n<aside>\n<\/aside>\n<p>                        <a name=\"pagebreak\"\/><\/p>\n<p>He urged the nearly 20 countries in attendance to abandon the ICC and reject its attempts to strip their governments and courts of their \u201csovereignty.\u201d The Trump administration is pushing a campaign to dismantle the international court in retaliation for arrest warrants issued against senior Israeli officials over the war in Gaza and investigations into U.S. personnel in Afghanistan.<\/p>\n<div class=\"permission\" style=\"padding-top: 25px;\">\n<p>Copyright \u00a9 2026 The Washington Times, LLC.\n                        <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<script async=\"async\" data-cfasync=\"false\" src=\"https:\/\/pl30214220.effectivecpmnetwork.com\/9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<div id=\"container-9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\"><\/div>\r\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>PANAMA CITY \u2014 U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Wednesday said the recently inaugurated government of Colombian President Abelardo de la Espriella has requested U.S. collaboration in joint military operations in Colombia to combat \u201cnarco-terrorism.\u201d During a meeting of the so-called Americas Counter-Cartel Coalition in Panama, Hegseth said Colombia would also join the \u201cShield of&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":42693,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/twt-thumbs.washtimes.com\/media\/image\/2026\/08\/12\/Panama_U.S._48682_c0-83-1952-1221_s1200x700.jpg?4790b068aa333c07ad2e0c362cdebcb072da6645","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-42692","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-hub"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42692","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=42692"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42692\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/42693"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=42692"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=42692"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=42692"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}