Colombia’s President Gustavo Petro has announced that his nation is suspending coal exports to the State of Israel.
Colombia is the world’s fifth largest producer of coal and a significant supplier to Israel.
BREAKING ?? President Gustavo Petro has declared that Colombia will “suspend coal exports to Israel until it stops the genocide.”
— Progressive International (@ProgIntl) June 8, 2024
The announcement posted on the X social media platform said coal exports will be halted “until the genocide has stopped,” a reference to the wildly inaccurate Hamas claims of civilian deaths by Israeli forces in Gaza, accepted carte blanche by many in the international community.
The committee tasked with the matter is expected to make a final decision by Thursday.
Petro cited Israel’s war against the Hamas terrorist organization in Gaza as the reason for the decision. He also cut diplomatic ties with Israel last month over the war.
Columbia exported three million tons of coal to Israel last year, worth about $450 million, according to the American Journal of Transportation, quoting Bloomberg.
The country’s trade ministry claims the Jewish State uses the resource to produce weapons and other military goods.
Coal serves as an emergency energy backup for two major power stations in the Jewish State.
Israel relies on coal for 20 percent of its electricity production. That figure is expected to drop to three percent following Colombia’s decision, according to Mining.com.
Nevertheless, Israel has access to other sources of coal as well.
“Colombia believes that the military operations against the Palestinian people represent a transgression of a peremptory norm of international law,” according to the Colombia government decree on the issue.
The move could push Israel towards further energy self-sufficiency via clean energy instead.
