Colombia inks $4.3 bn deal to buy Swedish warplanes

Colombia inks $4.3 bn deal to buy Swedish warplanes

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.

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.

Petro, Colombia's first leftist president, has traded insults with US counterpart Donald Trump and alleged that the ultimate goal of the US deployment is to seize Venezuela's o