COLOMBIAN President Gustavo Petro on Wednesday hit back against comments by US President Donald Trump, who has called him “a thug and a bad man.”

President Petro said he will defend himself through legal channels in the US after accusations that link Colombia to drug production.

The Colombian leader said in a post on social media: “From the slanders that have been cast against me in the territory of the US by high-ranking officials, I will defend myself judicially with American lawyers in the American justice system.”

Referring to recent attacks on boats that the US claims were involved in drug trafficking in the Caribbean, the left-wing president said: “I will always stand against genocides and murders by those in power in the Caribbean.

“When our help is required to fight against drug trafficking, American society will have it. We will fight against the drug traffickers with the states that want our help.”

In another post, he said that the US government “seems to reject its own experience built with Colombia and changes the strategy to a mistaken one, which undermines the sovereignty of Latin American and Caribbean countries.”

He said: “The magnitude of Trump’s insult to Colombia and to myself no longer aims to achieve an effective anti-drug trafficking strategy but to affect Colombia’s elections next year,” as he accused President Trump of once again seeking “the triumph of the extreme right, which is strongly and provenly linked to drug trafficking but obedient in complying with invasions.”

Earlier, President Trump threatened to take “very serious action” against Colombia, which he accused without evidence of manufacturing illegal drugs that are brought into the US.

He said President Petro “better watch it or we’ll take very serious action against him and his country.”

President Trump also called his Colombian counterpart a “thug and bad guy” and accused Colombia of producing illegal drugs that are “coming into the US generally through Mexico.”