BOGOTÁ, Colombia — An “abhorrent” violation of Latin American sovereignty. An attack committed by “enslavers.” A “spectacle of death” comparable to Nazi Germany’s 1937 carpet bombing of Guernica, Spain.

There is perhaps no world leader criticizing the Trump administration’s attack on Venezuela as strongly as left-wing President Gustavo Petro of neighboring Colombia.

While other officials tread carefully, Petro has seized on the U.S. capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro to escalate his spiraling war of words with President Donald Trump, who has said a U.S. military operation in Colombia “ sounds good to me. ”

On Wednesday, Petro called for Colombians to take to the streets “to stand up for their nation’s sovereignty in response to Trump’s insults and military intervention threats.” He convened emergency meetings before the United Nations and the Organization of American States. And the former leftist guerrilla even threatened to take up arms against the U.S. to defend his country.

Petro’s high-stakes gambit has put Colombia, long America’s staunchest regional ally, in Trump’s crosshairs and his government in a bind: how to reap the political rewards of standing up to Washington just months before a presidential election without jeopardizing crucial security assistance or goading Trump into making good on his threat to invade.

That tension was on split-screen display this week as Petro lashed out at Trump while his top officials rushed to assure the U.S. that Colombia remains the pillar of its counternarcotics strategy abroad. For the past 30 years, the U.S. has worked closely with Colombia, the world’s largest producer of cocaine, to arrest drug traffickers, fend off rebel groups and boost economic development.

Colombia retains leverage as the main source of intelligence Washington uses to interdict drugs in the Caribbean, experts say.

“People are trying to tell Trump: ‘Look, you can punish Petro to the extent possible, but you don’t want to punish the country. That undermines the fight against drugs and is going to be harmful for the United States,’” said Michael Shifter, a Latin America expert at the Inter-American Dialogue think tank in Washington.

“But Trump is completely unpredictable,” Shifter said. “He changes his mind, he’s driven by his own impulses.”

Petro has drawn Trump’s ire for months.

He has turned back U.S. military deportation flights, urged American soldiers to disobey Trump during a pro-Palestinian rally in New York, lambasted U.S. attacks on alleged drug vessels as “murder,” and sparred with him over Israel’s military campaign in Gaza and his administration’s crackdown on immigration.

Infuriated, Trump has deployed language that he often used to describe Maduro, calling Petro a “lunatic” and an “international drug leader.” He has revoked Petro’s U.S. visa; slapped sweeping sanctions on him, his relatives and his interior minister on drug-related grounds; vowed to end all U.S. aid to Colombia; and threatened punitive tariffs on Colombian exports.

Thrilled by Maduro’s ouster, Trump pushed the fight even further in recent days. He called Petro a “sick man who likes making cocaine and selling it to the United States” and warned of a possible U.S. military operation on Colombian soil.

Petro can’t help relishing the conflict — as long as it remains only verbal. Frustrated with congressional resistance to his contentious reforms, failing to fulfill his promise of “total peace” with armed groups and facing a series of electoral tests, Petro has found in Trump the perfect foil as he fights for his legacy.

“He wants this stage where he is the clearest adversary, rhetorically or politically, to the U.S.,” said Sergio Guzman, a political risk analyst based in Bogotá.

The constitution bars Petro from seeking another term in May’s presidential vote but the country’s first leftist president wants his coalition to retain power over the resurgent right that blames his unpopular government for rising crime. Colombia will also hold legislative elections in March.

So far, Petro’s strategy of playing David to Trump’s Goliath seems to be paying off.

As Trump escalated his threats against Colombia this week, even some of Petro’s opponents rushed to his defense.

“Trump is misinformed and misfocused; his simplistic statements are counterproductive,” said Aníbal Gaviria, a right-wing presidential hopeful, praising his country’s strong democratic institutions. “Colombia is not Venezuela, nor Cuba, nor Nicaragua.”

A U.S. military operation against Petro who, unlike Maduro, was democratically elected, is unlikely, experts say.

But complicating the calculation for Colombian officials is Trump’s increasingly militaristic comments about Latin America that lump Colombia in with Venezuela as a source of narcotics and immigrants in the U.S.

“Whereas the Colombian institutions still maintain cooperation and have a lot to lose, Petro personally feels like that bridge has already burned,” said Elizabeth Dickinson, a senior analyst at the International Crisis Group.

Recent statements from top ministers betray the rising alarm. Fears are also building that Colombia — that shares a 2,200-kilometer (1,360-mile) volatile border with Venezuela and is the biggest host of Venezuelan refugees — could get sucked into a wider regional conflagration if its neighbor descends into chaos.

As Petro fired more salvos on social media, Colombia’s interior and justice ministers scrambled to put out the fire, announcing they had notified U.S. intelligence agencies the government would “continue to coordinate and cooperate in the fight against drug trafficking based on U.S. information and technology.”

In a news conference, Defense Minister Pedro Sánchez sought to reassure the public that the leaders’ latest spat had done nothing to upset security cooperation critical to the Colombian military and police as they fight leftist guerrillas and drug traffickers. Washington has provided Bogotá with roughly $14 billion in the last two decades.

“Today, we have a golden opportunity to invest even more in strengthening international cooperation,” Sánchez said, ticking off the government’s successes in destroying thousands of cocaine labs and intercepting fentanyl shipments.

Colombia is trying to resolve the tensions with Trump diplomatically, Foreign Minister Rosa Villavicencio told reporters on Tuesday. Nonetheless, Colombia is preparing for “the possibility of aggression against our country by the United States.”

“We have a highly trained, very well prepared army,” she said.

Indeed, the army has long received training from the U.S.

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DeBre reported from Buenos Aires, Argentina.

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Follow AP’s coverage of Latin America and the Caribbean at https://apnews.com/hub/latin-america

The Trump administration released updated U.S. dietary guidelines Wednesday, encouraging Americans to eat more protein and full-fat dairy, while cutting back on ultra-processed foods and added sugars.

The guidelines — which are updated every five years by the Agriculture and Health and Human Services departments — largely align with Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s “Make America Healthy Again” movement, but stop short of the sweeping changes some nutrition experts had expected.

Gone is the MyPlate visual guide for what foods to eat — which recommended filling your plate with roughly equal parts grains, vegetables, protein and fruit with a small portion of dairy.

Instead, an updated version of the food pyramid is back, this time inverted and slightly jumbled. Protein, dairy and healthy fats, along with vegetables and fruits, dominate; whole grains are de-emphasized.

The new guidance emphasizes protein at every meal and encourages people to eat as much as twice the recommended daily allowance of 0.8 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight, instead recommending 1.2 to 1.6 grams per kilogram of body weight.

The guidelines also tout full-fat dairy, a departure from earlier versions that recommended low-fat or fat-free versions to limit saturated fat intake. Kennedy has called the previous guidelines “antiquated” because of those recommendations.

Guidance on saturated fat has not changed. The latest recommendations still cap intake at less than 10% of total daily calories.

Kennedy, however, has often highlighted his personal taste for saturated fat.

That includes a public stop at a Florida Steak ‘n Shake in March after the chain ditched vegetable oil for beef tallow. In July, he told governors that the updated dietary guidelines would push for what he called “commonsense” foods, including more saturated fats and meat.

The American Medical Association applauded the new guidance for spotlighting ultra-processed foods, added sugars and sodium, which it says fuel chronic diseases, including heart disease, diabetes and obesity.

”The Guidelines affirm that food is medicine and offer clear direction patients and physicians can use to improve health,” Dr. Bobby Mukkamala, president of the AMA, said in a statement.

Marion Nestle, professor emerita of nutrition, food studies and public health at New York University, said the advice to limit highly-processed foods is a major improvement, but “everything else is weaker or has no scientific justification.”

The focus on protein, for example, “makes no sense (Americans eat plenty) other than as an excuse to advise more meat and dairy, full fat, which will make it impossible to keep saturated fat to 10% of calories or less,” Nestle wrote in an email.

The American Heart Association recommends a lower intake of saturated fat, aiming for less than 6% of total daily calories. The group says limiting saturated fat can reduce the risk of heart attack and stroke, and decrease levels of LDL cholesterol, often called bad cholesterol, which leads to plaque buildup in arteries.

Ultra-processed foods and added sugar

A White House spokesperson said the new guidance is based on “scientific consensus” and “common sense.”

The dietary guidelines shape what’s in school lunches, military meals and federal food assistance programs, including the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and the Child Nutrition Programs. The White House spokesperson said the new guidance will be phased into schools and federal food programs over the next two years.

Some of the guidance does reflect advice nutrition experts had been calling for.

The recommendations call for avoiding ultra-processed foods, added sugars and refined carbohydrates. It singles out prepackaged snacks such as chips, cookies and candy in favor of “nutrient-dense foods” and home-prepared meals.

Added sugars should be limited to 10 grams per meal. To help people identify added sugar, the guidance advises checking the ingredient list for terms that include “sugar,” “syrup” or ingredients that end in “-ose.”

Fruits and vegetables should be consumed “in their original form,” although frozen, dried or canned fruits and vegetables can be a good option if they include no or very limited added sugars.

On sodium, the guidelines are unchanged: Most people ages 14 and up should consume less than 2,300 milligrams per day. Recommendation limits are lower for children, ranging from less than 1,200 mg per day to 1,800 mg per day.

The new guidelines appear to remove specific daily limits on alcohol, which were previously set at no more than one drink per day for women and two for men.

Instead, it advises Americans to drink “less alcohol for better overall health.”