Claim:
In fall 2025, Colombia President Gustavo Petro called for The Hague to investigate U.S. President Donald Trump over boat strikes in the Caribbean.
Rating:
Context
In a speech at the U.N. General Assembly on Sept. 23, 2025, Petro called for a criminal inquiry against “U.S. officials” involved in boat strikes the U.S. military carried out against alleged narco-terrorists, which he specified included the “top official who gave the order, President Trump.” The organization responsible for investigating and trying alleged extrajudicial killings is the International Criminal Court, often referred to as “The Hague” due to its location in The Hague, Netherlands. As such, while Petro did not literally say “The Hague,” that was the implication of his words.
As a debate intensified over the legality of U.S. military strikes on the boats of alleged “narco-terrorists” from Venezuela in the Caribbean in fall 2025, a rumor spread that Colombian President Gustavo Petro called for The Hague to investigate U.S. President Donald Trump.
On Nov. 9, 2025, a post on X expressed joy about Petro’s call that The Hague open a criminal investigation against Trump for his “crimes in the seas of the Caribbean” (archived), writing, “Who’s happy that Colombian President Petro called for The Hague to make a CRIMINAL investigation into Trump—for his crimes in the seas of the Caribbean, AND everywhere else?”
The post gained nearly 211,000 views and 24,000 likes as of this writing. The same claim also appeared on Facebook, with one Nov. 10, 2025, post reading, “BREAKING: Colombian President Gustavo Petro calls for The Hague to begin a criminal investigation into Trump for his crimes in the Caribbean Sea and internationally.”
The claim was true, although Petro did not use the exact words “The Hague.” Our rating requires context, which we will outline below.
Since early September 2025, the U.S. military carried out strikes on Venezuelan boats in international waters, claiming the boats belong to “narco-terrorists” — people who traffic drugs to finance terroristic activities. In response, some experts said that the legality of those strikes was in question. Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro called the first strike a “heinous crime” and accused the U.S. military of targeting civilians. Still, the strikes continued. After another one of them, Petro said that the U.S. had killed an innocent Colombian fisherman, Alejandro Carranza.
These strikes, which appeared to target Venezuelan and Colombian citizens, led Petro to give a speech at the U.N. General Assembly on Sept. 23, 2025, in which he condemned the U.S. military’s attacks on boats and called for a “criminal inquiry” to be opened against U.S. officials, even if the inquiry should target Trump. The section of the speech in question appears around the 7:40 mark of the CNN en Español video embedded below.
His exact words about the topic, translated from Spanish, were, “A criminal inquiry must be opened against officials of the U.S., even if it must include the top official who gave the order, President Trump.”
It was not a coincidence that Petro called for this inquiry at the General Assembly, which gathers the heads of state of all U.N. countries. International criminal cases related to extrajudicial killings are the purview of the International Criminal Court, commonly referred to as “The Hague” due to its location in The Hague, Netherlands. In other words, while Petro did not mention The Hague by name, that was the implication of his statement.
The ICC is the result of the 1957 Treaty of Rome. To be under the ICC’s jurisdiction, countries must sign the treaty, which the U.S. has not done.
Venezuela and Colombia, by contrast, are among the 125 signatories of the treaty. This has led some to argue prosecutors at the ICC have the authority to open a criminal case against Trump. For example, George Mason University Scalia Law School Professor and Heritage Foundation fellow Eugene Kontorovich wrote a Wall Street Journal opinion piece on Oct. 5, 2025, that lent credence to Petro’s words:
Venezuela is a Rome Statute party, which in the court’s thinking gives it jurisdiction over U.S. officials and servicemen involved in the attacks. The ICC has already launched an investigation against a nonmember state (Israel) based on a single boarding of a vessel flagged by a member state, so it has all the precedents it needs.
Kontorovich also cited Kenneth Roth, former director of Human Rights Watch, who posted on X on Sept. 3, 2025 — the day after the first boat strike — that the “‘war’ on drugs” does not give the U.S. license to “summarily” execute suspects (archived):
Trump just did what the International Criminal Court has charged former Philippines Pres. Duterte with doing — ordering the summary execution of alleged drug traffickers. The “war” on drugs is a metaphor. It doesn’t allow summarily executing suspects. https://t.co/bEt0YVOM7A
— Kenneth Roth (@KenRoth) September 3, 2025
