Trump threatens military operation against Colombia after Venezuela raid

US President Donald Trump on Sunday threatened military action against Colombia's government, telling reporters that such an operation "sounds good to me".

"Colombia is very sick, too, run by a sick man, who likes making cocaine and selling it to the United States, and he's not going to be doing it very long," Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One, in an apparent reference to Colombia's President Gustavo Petro.

Asked directly whether the US would pursue a military operation against the country, Trump answered, "It sounds good to me."

The comments came after the United States captured Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro in an audacious raid and whisked him to New York to face drug-trafficking charges.

Meanwhile Russia’s Security Council deputy chairman Dmitry Medvedev and a senior lawmaker said over the weekend that Trump’s actions in Venezuela were unlawful and destabilising, while portraying them as a blunt assertion of US interests.

Medvedev told TASS on Sunday that Trump’s behaviour was illegal but internally coherent because it pursued US interests.

Medvedev said Latin America was viewed as the United States’ “backyard” and suggested Trump was seeking leverage over Venezuela’s oil supplies.

“Uncle Sam’s main motivation has always been simple: other people’s supplies,” Medvedev said, according to TASS.

He added that if such an operation were carried out against a stronger country, it would be seen as an act of war.

Alexei Pushkov, a Russian senator who chairs a Federation Council commission on information policy, said the operation and Trump’s rhetoric might prove less effective than their dramatic impact.

“One cannot deny that Trump’s actions and especially his statements are striking. Their effectiveness is another matter,” Pushkov said on the Telegram messaging app.

He compared the episode to what he called premature US declarations of victory in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya, arguing that initial “triumphs” later turned into defeat or prolonged crises.

Pushkov said the United States, by attacking Venezuela and seizing its president, had violated norms and “alarmed the whole world,” returning it to “the wild imperialism of the 19th century” and reviving a Wild West right to act at will in the Western Hemisphere.

“But what will the final result be? Will this ‘triumph’ not turn into a catastrophe?” he said.

Russia has long maintained close ties with Venezuela, spanning energy cooperation, military links and high-level political contacts, and Moscow has backed Caracas diplomatically for years as both countries seek to deepen trade and investment.