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 oil wealth and destabilize Latin America.

Petro said 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."

Petro is an outspoken critic of Trump, who has called him "an illegal drug leader" because of Colombia's high level of cocaine production.

Trump has also withdrawn US financial aid from Colombia and taken it off its list of countries seen as allies in fighting drug trafficking.

US and French firms had also tried to sell warplanes to Colombia but in the end Bogota went with Saab.

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, who is close to Petro, says the US military deployment in the region is aimed at ousting him.

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