Colombian President Gustavo Petro had trouble refueling his plane on a trip to the Middle East after being sanctioned by the United States, his government said Thursday.

Axar.az informs, citing CBS, Interior Minister Armando Benedetti said that the presidential plane stopped in Madrid to refuel on the way to Saudi Arabia but that officials at Barajas airport, Spain's biggest, refused to fill it up.

After negotiations with Spain's left-wing government, the plane landed at a military base to refuel.

President Donald Trump's administration has accused Petro of enabling drug cartels and placed him on the U.S. Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) sanctions list.

"Since President Gustavo Petro came to power, cocaine production in Colombia has exploded to the highest rate in decades, flooding the United States and poisoning Americans," Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said last week when annoucing the sanctions.