For a literary festival, silence can be more revealing than speech. The decision by three writers to withdraw from the 2026 Hay Festival in Cartagena over the presence of María Corina Machado, this year’s Nobel Peace Prize laureate and the most prominent figure in Venezuela’s democratic opposition, has exposed a paradox at the heart of contemporary literary culture: a professed devotion to free expression that falters when confronted with an inconvenient voice.

Hay Festival Cartagena, now in its 21st edition, is scheduled to take place from 29 January to 1 February 2026, with parallel events in Barranquilla, Medellín and a special edition in Jericó, Antioquia. Founded three decades ago in Wales and once described by Bill Clinton as “the Woodstock of the mind,” Hay has built its global reputation on the premise that literature flourishes in the presence of disagreement. Its stages have hosted figures as diverse – and divisive – as Salman Rushdie, Jonathan Safran Foer and David Goodhart, writers whose ideas have unsettled orthodoxies across continents.

Yet in Cartagena, dialogue has been recast as contamination.

The Colombian novelist Laura Restrepo, the Barranquilla-born writer Giuseppe Caputo and the Dominican activist Mikaelah Drullard announced they would not attend in protest at Machado’s invitation. Restrepo, winner of the 2004 Alfaguara Prize, had been scheduled to participate in several events, including a conversation with Indian novelist Pankaj Mishra and a session devoted to her most recent book, I Am the Dagger and I Am the Wound. In a public letter addressed to festival director Cristina de la Fuente, Restrepo described Machado’s presence as “a line” crossed.

“I must cancel my attendance at Hay Festival Cartagena 2026,” Restrepo wrote. “The reason is the participation of María Corina Machado, an active supporter of United States military intervention in Latin America.” Granting her a platform, Restrepo argued, amounted to facilitating positions hostile to regional autonomy.

Caputo echoed his reasoning on social media, announcing that “in the current context of escalating imperial violence, it is better to withdraw from a festival taking place opposite the bombarded waters of the Caribbean Sea.” Drullard, five days earlier, said she could not attend an event that “supports pro-genocide and interventionist positions through the mobilisation of those who promote them,” citing Machado’s proximity to the administration of US President Donald Trump.

What remains striking, however, is not merely the severity of these accusations but their selectivity. None of the boycott statements devotes comparable moral energy to denouncing the documented human rights abuses of Nicolás Maduro’s regime: arbitrary detentions, enforced disappearances, torture of political prisoners, or the systematic dismantling of democratic institutions. One is left to ask whether the authors’ moral outrage extends to the lived realities of Venezuelans themselves, or whether it finds expression only when filtered through the optics of geopolitics.

The irony is sharpened by the fact that the same US administration helped secure Machado’s escape from Venezuela on December 8, enabling her to arrive in Oslo hours after her daughter Ana Corina Sosa received the Nobel Peace Prize on her behalf. “When the history of our time is written, it won’t be the names of the authoritarian rulers that stand out – but the names of those who dared resist,” noted the Nobel Foundation. 

The arguments from Machado’s detractors  warrant scrutiny – and above all, debate. What they do not justify is refusal from Latin America’s self-entitled literati. A boycott replaces argument with absence, moral reasoning with pantomime. It is a gesture that confers ethical purity upon the boycotter while foreclosing the very exchange that literature has traditionally claimed to defend. This is the “line” that cannot be crossed.

The Hay Festival’s response has been characteristically diplomatic In a statement following the cancellations, organisers reaffirmed their commitment to pluralism: “We reaffirm our conviction that open, plural and constructive dialogue remains an essential tool for addressing complex realities and for defending the free exchange of ideas and freedom of expression.” They stressed that Hay “does not align itself with or endorse the opinions, positions or statements of those who participate in its activities,” while respecting the decisions of those who chose not to attend.

That insistence on neutrality, however, also reveals a deeper unease. If a literary festival must repeatedly assert its impartiality, it may be because neutrality itself has become suspect. Increasingly, festivals are asked to function as courts of moral arbitration, conferring legitimacy on some voices while quietly disqualifying others. The result is not a more just cultural sphere, but a narrower one—policed less by argument than by consensus.

The controversy has unfolded at a particularly volatile moment for Venezuela’s eight-million diaspora. Machado’s invitation coincides with a renewed escalation in US pressure in the Caribbean Sea. On Tuesday, President Trump ordered a “total and complete blockade” of all sanctioned oil tankers entering or leaving the country, targeting Caracas’s principal source of revenue. His administration also designated Maduro’s government a Foreign Terrorist Organization, accusing it of using “stolen US assets” to finance terrorism, drug trafficking and organised crime.

“Venezuela is completely surrounded by the largest armada ever assembled in the history of South America,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “It will only get bigger, and the shock to them will be like nothing they have ever seen before – until such time as they return to the United States all of the oil, land and other assets they previously stole from us.”

Against this backdrop, Machado’s high-profile presence at Hay has acquired a symbolic weight that far exceeds literary stages. Yet it is precisely at such moments that intellectual forums are tested. Fiction, after all, teaches empathy, complexity and the capacity to hold contradiction without retreat. To boycott rather than engage is to abandon that lesson – and, with it, democratical ideals.

The reputational cost to Hay Festival Cartagena may prove lasting – not because Machado was invited, but because the limits of reason and tolerance have been publicly exposed. A gathering that once prided itself on hosting difficult conversations now finds itself unsettled by the very principle on which it was founded.

And there is a final inflection. If Hay’s commitment to dialogue is grounded in a leftist agenda – if certain voices render discussion impossible – then Machado herself should reasonably question the value of her remote participation at the festival on January 30, for a scheduled conversation with Venezuelan journalist and former minister Moisés Naím.

In Cartagena, it is not Machado’s words that should concern audiences, but the intellectual impoverishment by those who chose not to speak to her at all.

Senator Iván Cepeda of the ruling Historic Pact coalition has emerged as the early front-runner in Colombia’s 2026 presidential race, according to a nationwide Invamer poll released Sunday by Caracol TV and Blu Radio. The survey – the first major measurement since the lifting of Colombia’s recent polling restrictions – places the left-wing candidate at 31.9% of voting intention, six months ahead of the first round.

The results position Cepeda well ahead of candidate Abelardo de la Espriella of Defensores de la Patria, who received 18.2%, and independent centrist Sergio Fajardo, who registered 8.5%. Miguel Uribe Londoño, running for the leadership of  President Álvaro Uribe Vélez’s Centro Democrático party, follows with 4.2%. Uribe Londoño is the father of Senator Miguel Uribe Turbay, victim of an assassination attempt on June 7, and who died two months later at the Santa Fe Hospital in Bogotá.

The findings come amid broad public dissatisfaction with the country’s direction and with the administration of President Gustavo Petro, who leaves office on August 7, 2026. According to the poll, 56% of respondents disapprove of Petro’s administration, while 37% approve. Although disapproval has dipped slightly from previous months, nearly six in ten Colombians remain critical of the government. National sentiment is similarly pessimistic: 59.8% believe Colombia is “on the wrong track,” compared with 34.4% who feel otherwise.

Internal security stands out as the leading concern. Asked whether Petro’s “Total Peace” policy had made them feel safer, 66.2% claim it made them feel more insecure. Nearly 65% believe the initiative is moving in the “wrong direction”, and 73% say the government has lost territorial control to illegal armed groups. Only 20% expressed confidence in the government’s peace and security approach.

The Invamer survey, conducted between November 15 and 27 among 3,800 respondents in 148 municipalities, does not include public reaction to the latest scandal involving alleged infiltration of state institutions by FARC dissidents. The poll has a 1.81% margin of error and a 95% confidence level.

Cepeda’s lead reflects firm support among left-leaning voters and measurable gains among independents and left-leaning centrists. Though only 24% of those polled identified themselves as “left-wing”, the senator’s 31.9% support suggests he is drawing backing among younger voters. He also carries a relatively high rejection rate: 23.9% said they would “never” vote for him.

The survey challenges the perception that Cepeda lacks room to grow beyond the left, even as 50% expressed that they would prefer to vote for a candidate opposed to Petro. Analysts believe the Historic Pact’s decision to hold its internal consultation last month helped consolidate support within the coalition and gave Cepeda a strategic advantage.

Despite his lead, Cepeda could face voter rejection should Petro’s disapproval ratings continue to climb. The candidate’s current negative rating is among the highest of any public figure, and his pro-Petro agenda on security, economy, and U.S relations could push the center closer to the moderate right. Still, the poll indicates Cepeda would win a runoff against De la Espriella with a wide margin, but face a “technical tie” with the mathematician and former Governor of Antioquia.

De la Espriella, meanwhile, has quickly consolidated the anti-Petro vote, emerging as a “dark horse” at the extreme right of the spectrum. Once absent from early electoral projections, the lawyer now surpasses established Centro Democrático politicians – including senators María Fernanda Cabal, Paola Holguín, and Paloma Valencia.

Former defense minister under President Juan Manuel Santos and ex-Ambassador to Washinton, Juan Carlos Pinzón, is in seventh place (2,9%), but these early numbers are likely to increase, given that he maintains a close relationship with three ideological camps (Centro Democrático, La U, Cambio Radical) represented in Presidents Uribe and Juan Manuel Santos, and German Vargás Lleras.

 Even though the poll found that 63% of eligible voters know who De la Espriella is, there is room for continued growth for the five candidates who marked above 2% in the poll, among them, Vargas Lleras in fifth place (2.1%).

The centrist bloc, historically influential in Colombian politics, appears fragmented. Fajardo, once considered a reliable alternative to both left and right, no longer polls in double digits. While he maintains a lower rejection rate than most rivals and doubles the numbers of former Bogotá mayor Claudia López (4.1%), analysts say the proliferation of centrist candidates could dilute Fajardo’s base. Combined, these candidates would outpace De la Espriella’s support, but the numbers suggest this does not translate into a cohesive electoral force.

Foreign policy is also shaping voter priorities. A large majority – 78% – said maintaining strong relations with the United States is essential for the next administration. Respondents widely rejected Petro’s decision to use a megaphone in New York to urge U.S. soldiers not to follow orders from former President Donald Trump; 78% disapproved of the act, even though half of respondents hold an unfavorable view of Trump.

President Petro reacted to the poll on social media, framing the electoral landscape as a struggle between entrenched elites and what he described as a “powerful people” seeking to reclaim the state. Referring implicitly to Uribe and Fajardo, the president said Colombia must reject “mafioso elites” and work toward a “free and educated” society.

The Centro Democrático announced it will conduct an internal vote among more than 4,000 active party members to select two candidates for a March 2026 primary. The contenders are senators Cabal, Holguín, and Valencia, and Miguel Uribe Londoño.

With six months until the first round on May 31, 2026, the Invamer poll highlights a polarized electorate, deep concerns over security and corruption, and an early advantage for the ruling coalition’s candidate — with substantial uncertainty and new political alignments spearheaded by former presidents, especially Álvaro Uribe.

At the eastern fringes of the Andes, where the Orinoco River Basin unfurls in an ondulating canvas of green, punctuated by majestic rivers and sandstone mesas, lies one of the world’s most astonishing open-air galleries of human existence.

The Serranía de La Lindosa, in the department of Guaviare, is a monumental tableau carved by nature and painted by hands that may have been among the earliest storytellers on the planet. For centuries, these walls stood largely hidden to the world, known only to Indigenous communities and a handful of intrepid explorers. Today, they form the heart of a groundbreaking exhibition in Bogotá’s Museo del Oro: Trazos sobre piedra: Pinturas milenarias en la serranía de La Lindosa, an ambitious, year-long showcase hosted by Banco de la República.

The exhibition that opens on November 28 is the most extensive institutional undertaking yet to unravel the symbols, narratives, and cosmologies that animate a rock-art tradition stretching back tens of millennia. Far from a display of a lost civilization, the Central Bank’s ambition matches that of the cliffs themselves – massive escarpments where hunters, shamans, and master painters returned generation after generation to leave visual testaments of their world.

The story of La Lindosa begins, in many ways, with a single mark. A red smear – thin, elongated, always intentional – painted on the rough face of a stone wall deep in an expanse of canopy and tropical rainforest. To an untrained eye, the pigment blends with natural iron deposits. But to archaeologists who have studied the region for years, it marks the threshold of an extraordinary visual universe. That smear belongs to a constellation of tens of thousands of pictograms across Guaviare and neighboring Amazonian massifs, including the monumental cliffs of the PNN Chiribiquete National Park. Together, they form one of the world’s oldest and largest rock-art traditions.

Archaeologists describe La Lindosa as a cultural landscape, a place where art, geology, ecology, and spirituality intertwine. The Serranía’s towering sandstone walls were formed by tectonic forces millions of years ago, creating natural canvases that humans began to paint long before the earliest agricultural societies emerged.

Only recently have researchers begun to grasp the full temporal depth of these murals. While Europe’s famed Lascaux cave contains roughly 600 images dating to the Upper Paleolithic (between 15,000 and 13,000 BC), the paleo-Indian paintings of Colombia could be far older. In Chiribiquete, analysis of natural dyes, superimposed layers, and stylistic continuity suggests that some images may date back as far as 35,000 BC. La Lindosa shares many of these motifs and techniques, hinting at a cultural horizon that may reach back to the earliest chapters of human imagination.

This immense chronology is not just a scientific revelation – it is a window into a world where every figure, every line, carries meaning. The murals of La Lindosa are filled with scenes of ritual dances, hunting parties, geometric patterns, spirit beings, and animal-human hybrids. They depict jaguars, monkeys, fish, snakes, birds, and the silhouettes of humans with outstretched arms. In some panels, the figures appear in motion; in others, they stand in tight, nearly choreographed formations that suggest communal ceremony. The dazzling variety of imagery points to a worldview rooted in transformation, reciprocity, and ecological intimacy.

One of the most compelling findings to emerge from recent research is the specialized nature of the painting tradition. Archaeologists believe that the most experienced storytellers – shamans, ritual specialists, or highly trained painters – scaled treacherous escarpments to reach spaces associated with spirits and cosmic forces.

These elevated murals often contain the most complex iconography, executed with astonishing precision. Younger or less experienced painters worked closer to the ground, contributing simpler figures or layering their work atop earlier compositions. Over centuries, entire cliffs became palimpsests: surfaces where multiple generations added, corrected, reinterpreted, and echoed the narratives of their ancestors.

The Banco de la República’s exhibition, under Judith Trujillo’s curatorship, mirrors this layered history. Visitors encounter immersive installations, high-resolution photographic panels, pigment analyses, and interactive 3D reconstructions that recreate the sense of standing before the colossal walls themselves. Rather than isolating images, the exhibition places each pictogram within the broader landscape – its geology, myths, and ecological rhythms.

To step inside the exhibition is to enter a world where the boundaries between art and survival dissolve. The rock art of La Lindosa was not decorative; it was a method of world-making. It engaged with spirits, conveyed moral codes, transmitted ecological knowledge, and anchored communities in a landscape that could be both bountiful and unforgiving. Many murals appear near water sources, ancient pathways, or natural shelters – places where human life pulsed most intensely.

Just as telling is the continuity these images embody. Despite colonization, displacement, and the fragmentation of Indigenous territories, the symbolic vocabulary of the Amazon endures. Elements of this cosmology survive in the ritual practices of several Indigenous groups today, whose elders regard the panels not as archaeological remains but as living documents.

As Colombia confronts the pressures of illegal mining, deforestation, and climate change, the need to protect sites like La Lindosa has become urgent. These walls hold traces of human existence long before national borders or written histories were printed. They extend the timeline of pre-Columbian identity back tens of thousands of years, reminding visitors that the Amazon and Orinoco watersheds have always been at the center of innovation, imagination, and spiritual awakening.

Inside the Gold Museum’s hallowed halls, visitors will pause before the vivid reds – their unexpected brightness, their persistence through rain, wind, time. These pigments, ground from seeds, minerals, and endemic plants, were not chosen at random; they were sacred. They signaled life, danger, transformation. They were meant to endure.

Whether the ancient painters imagined their work surviving 30,000 years is just one of many unsolved mysteries. Their names may be lost, but their visions endure – a vast, breathing archive that continues to astonish and challenge us.

Guests to this landmark exhibition are not mere spectators either, but participants in La Lindosa’s vast “Sistine Chapel” – an offering handed-down to generations, and carried forward through the endless corridors of time.

Visitor Information – Museo del Oro

Museo del Oro, Banco de la República
Cra. 6 No. 15-88.

Exhibition runs until November 27, 2026.

Opening Hours

• Tuesday–Saturday: 9:00 a.m. – 7:00 p.m.
• Sunday: 10:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m.
• Monday: Closed

Admission: COP $5,000

Follow the exhibition on social media: Instagram @MuseoDelOro #LaLindosa #MuseoDelOro

As the USS Gerald R. Ford navigates uncomfortably close to the Venezuelan coastline and some 15,000 U.S. Marines remain stationed across Caribbean waters, Venezuela’s political crisis has entered a volatile new phase. In Caracas, Nicolás Maduro is publicly calling for peace and dialogue — even quoting John Lennon’s “Imagine” and delivering rally slogans in English — while the country’s most prominent opposition figure, Nobel Peace Prize laureate María Corina Machado, has issued an expansive “Freedom Manifesto” envisioning a democratic rebirth after the collapse of Maduro’s rule.

Both gestures — Maduro’s unusually soft-spoken overtures and Machado’s sweeping declaration of national principles — arrive just days before a major U.S. decision that could redefine Washington’s policy toward Venezuela. On November 24, the State Department is expected to designate the Cartel de los Soles, a Venezuelan military-linked drug trafficking network allegedly headed by Maduro, as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO).

Secretary of State Marco Rubio reiterated that the group “has corrupted the institutions of government in Venezuela and is responsible for terrorist violence conducted by and with other designated FTOs, as well as for trafficking drugs into the United States and Europe.”

Yet even as Washington prepares its most severe sanction to date, President Donald Trump has said he is open to speaking directly with Maduro. “I would probably talk to him, yeah,” Trump said. “I talk to everybody.”

That combination — tightening pressure paired with a sudden willingness to talk — has created what regional observers describe as an unprecedented moment of strategic ambiguity. Across Latin America, many now wonder whether the United States has a coherent plan for Venezuela or whether it is improvising amid escalating military preparations.

Maduro appears intent on exploiting that ambiguity. In recent public appearances, he has addressed the U.S. public directly, shifting between Spanish and English, at one point even singing. Over the weekend, he declared he wanted a “face-to-face” with Trump, urging: “Dialogue, call, yes; peace, yes; war, no — never, never war.”

In a televised address Monday, he warned that any U.S. military intervention would mark the “political end” of Trump’s leadership, accusing advisers around the U.S. president of “provoking” an armed conflict for political gain.

But even while denouncing Washington’s “hawks,” Maduro simultaneously extended yet another olive branch: he was willing to speak, he said, “with anyone in the Trump administration who wants to talk to Venezuela.”

This duality – hostility mixed with conspicuous calls for peace – reflects the delicate position Caracas faces as U.S. firepower mounts offshore and covert options reportedly expand.

According to a report published Tuesday by The New York Times, Trump has authorized the CIA to prepare potential covert operations inside Venezuela, part of a broader pressure campaign to weaken Maduro’s government. The same report said the White House has quietly reopened back-channel communications with Caracas, during which Maduro suggested he might consider stepping aside after a negotiated transition.

The State Department has also fueled speculation by delaying the FTO designation until November 24 — a move some analysts view as an ultimatum: enter negotiations or face an escalation that could sever what remains of Venezuela’s diplomatic and economic links to the outside world.

Vision for “The New Venezuela”

While Maduro navigates the diplomatic minefield, María Corina Machado is attempting to position herself — and the opposition — for a post-Maduro future. On Tuesday, Machado released her “Freedom Manifesto,” a sweeping philosophical and political declaration, that lays out a roadmap for what she calls “a Venezuela reborn from the ashes.”

The document is sharply moral in tone. It presents Venezuelans as having endured “chains of tyranny” and calls for the restoration of dignity, property rights, free markets, unrestricted speech, secure voting, institutional reform, environmental protection, and the return of nine million exiles forced abroad.

“We stand at the edge of a new era – one where our natural rights will prevail,” Machado writes. She envisions a country with a revitalized energy sector, a diversified high-tech economy, demilitarized institutions, and a reinvigorated place in the “international community of democracies.”

Her manifesto is both a political program and a counterpoint to the perception  prevalent in several Latin American capitals – that Washington’s next steps, not Venezuela’s internal politics, may determine the timing and nature of Maduro’s exit.

Even before the FTO designation, the United States had already escalated its military posture. Since early September, U.S. forces have carried out 21 strikes on boats in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific, killing 83 people, in what the administration describes as anti-narcotics operations. Trump has hinted that known trafficking sites within Venezuela are potential targets.

The prospect of further strikes has unsettled the region’s leftist governments, most notably Colombia, under Gustavo Petro. While Washington is willing to keep the door to dialogue open with Maduro, it remains water-tight shut to a democratically-elected president described by President Turmp as an “illegitimate drug leader”.

For Maduro, calling for dialogue may be a defensive tactic — an effort to avoid isolation at a moment when Washington appears to be tightening multiple pressure channels at once. For Machado, the combination of international pressure and internal exhaustion presents a rare opportunity to present the blueprint for a new Constitution.

Yet the central question remains whether the United States has a clear strategy for a peaceful transition to democracy. A show of overwhelming force without a defined political horizon could embolden Maduro’s close allies – including Russia and Colombia’s Petro – to argue that Washington lacks staying power in the hemisphere. Should the military arsenal in the Caribbean fail to deliver tangible results – from regime transition to a negotiated exile for Maduro – the Chavista leadership will feel emboldened to stay the course.

The next ten days, leading to the November 24 FTO designation, will prove decisive. Either Maduro exits quietly – triggering the removal of the U.S. government’s $50 million bounty for his arrest – or the United States crosses a legal and diplomatic threshold that could redefine the region for decades to come.

The arrival of the USS Gerald Ford in Caribbean waters has raised the stakes in the tense relationship between the United States and Venezuela. The aircraft carrier – the most advanced and powerful in the U.S. Navy – traveled for more than two weeks from the Mediterranean to take up position near South America, joining a growing naval presence under the Pentagon’s Southern Command.

Washington insists the deployment supports anti-narcotics operations aimed at curbing the flow of cocaine and other drugs from Latin America into the United States. Yet the timing and scale of the buildup have raised questions among America’s allies over whether it signals a shift toward a more confrontational posture against the regime of Nicolás Maduro.

Since early September, U.S. forces have carried out at least 19 strikes against small vessels in international waters near Venezuela and Colombia – operations the Trump administration says were targeting “cartel terrorists.” According to Pentagon announcements, some 76 people have been killed since the first narco-boat was destroyed by a missile strike on September 2.

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth – branded as “Secretary of War” following President Donald Trump’s renaming of the Defense Department – has become the public face of the campaign. “We’re protecting the homeland and taking out the cartel terrorists who wish to harm our people,” Hegseth said in late October, describing the strikes as “a message of deterrence.”

Trump has claimed that some of the targeted vessels were manned by members of the Venezuelan criminal network Tren de Aragua (TdeA), while others were moving narcotics for Colombia’s illegal armed groups, including Gulf Clan and National Liberation Army (ELN) guerrilla.

As the U.S. Navy reinforces its presence in the Caribbean with fighter jets, Marines, and drones, the deployment of the Ford marks the most significant show of American force in the region since the 1989 invasion of Panama. Venezuela, in turn, is on high alert, mobilizing the Bolivarian Armed Forces, National Guard, and civilian militia recruits in preparation for a potential confrontation.

The prospect of an assault on Venezuelan territory no longer feels entirely remote, even though Trump has publicly downplayed any immediate plans for direct intervention. “I wouldn’t be inclined to say that I would do that… I’m not gonna tell you what I’m gonna do with Venezuela,” he stated recently to CBS’s 60 Minutes.

After the Senate voted down a measure that would have required congressional authorization for military action, Republican lawmakers described the result as a “green light” to strike land targets within Venezuela. The Gerald Ford’s presence suggests Washington may not simply be policing drug routes – it is projecting supremacy. With such immense firepower now concentrated near Venezuela, retreating without one tangible result – the arrest of Maduro – could prove politically costly for The White House.

If the ultimate objective is regime change – hoping that Maduro’s government will implode under pressure – the warship could soon find itself running out of steam to remain in the Caribbean. For the Trump administration, time and strategy are now of the essence. Deploying billion-dollar hardware to capture a leader with a US$50 million bounty on his head risks appearing, to Maduro’s allies in Moscow, as an expensive bluff – or hollow show of force.

Should the so-called “Trump Doctrine” falter in the Caribbean, Latin America’s leftist leaders, most notably Colombia’s Gustavo Petro, will capitalize on Washington’s setback, using it to galvanize domestic support ahead of the 2026 elections.

International reaction to the missile strikes has ranged from muted concern to outright condemnation. The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk, warned that the attacks “have no justification in international law,” echoing similar criticisms from close U.S. allies including the United Kingdom, France, Netherlands, and to a tarnished degree, Colombia.

CNN reported on Wednesday that the United Kingdom has suspended certain intelligence-sharing with the Pentagon fearing “complicity” in the Caribbean operations. London’s official response – “it is our longstanding policy not to comment on intelligence matters” – only underscores the unease. Both the  Netherlands and France maintain a military presence in the Antilles, and claim that shared data could be used in operations that violate human rights.

In Bogotá, President Gustavo Petro, one of Washington’s fiercest critics on drug policy, announced that Colombia would follow the UK’s example and suspend communications between its security forces and U.S. agencies “as long as missile attacks on boats in the Caribbean persist.” Petro added that “the fight against drugs must be subordinated to the human rights of the Caribbean people.”

On Wednesday, U.S Secretary of State Marco Rubio rebuked the European position, stating: “I find it interesting all these countries want us to send nuclear-capable Tomahawk missiles to defend Europe. But when the United States positions aircraft carriers in our hemisphere, where we live, somehow that’s a problem.” He went on to affirm that the European Union does not get to “determine what international law is.”

While Washington frames the campaign as a continuation of the now centuries-old “War on Drugs,” Latin America’s left-leaning governments warn that it risks destabilizing the region and alienating partners at a moment when cooperation is crucial to tackle migration, organized crime, and environmental issues.

For now, the USS Gerald Ford will remain in the Caribbean – a floating fortress and symbol of American deterrence. Its presence projects strength but also uncertainty. Unless Washington clarifies its endgame, its most powerful warship could end up reviving an old question: how far is the United States willing to go in its pursuit of democracy beyond its shores – and at what cost to the stability of a hemisphere it has long abandoned?