Colombia has agreed to buy Swedish warplanes in a $4.3 billion deal with Saab, President Gustavo Petro said, as his country is locked in tension with the United States.
The government had said back in April that it would acquire fighter planes from Saab but did not say how many or for how much money.
Petro specified Friday in an event at a military base that Colombia will buy 17 Gripen fighter jets, in a $4.3 billion deal with Saab.
He added that the new planes will be used to dissuade “aggression against Colombia, wherever it may come from.”
“In a world that is geopolitically messy,” he said, such aggression “can come from anywhere.”
This comes as Colombia and much of the rest of Latin America are on edge due to a US military campaign targeting alleged drug running boats in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific.
