President Trump lately referred to as Colombia’s chief, Gustavo Petro, a “sick man who likes making cocaine and promoting it to america.”
Petro, in the meantime, has labeled Trump a assassin and in contrast him to Adolf Hitler.
However on Tuesday, the 2 leaders made good — principally — in a closed-door assembly on the White Home that each described as productive.
Trump described the two-hour dialog, which touched on power, Venezuela and bilateral efforts to fight drug trafficking, as “incredible.”
Petro, in flip, referred to as the confab “very optimistic” and stated it had an “optimistic and constructive tone.”
He introduced Trump Colombian espresso, and First Woman Melania Trump a robe crafted by Indigenous artisans.
Trump gifted him a framed portrait of the 2 males shaking palms, scrawled with the phrases: “I like Colombia.”
The assembly didn’t erase the appreciable political variations between Trump, who believes the U.S. ought to dominate the Western Hemisphere, and Petro, a former left-wing guerrilla who opposed the current U.S. operation to seize Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.
But it did appeared to ease tensions between Colombia and america, longtime allies whose relationship soured during the last yr amid public clashes between Trump and Petro.
Relations between the nations grew tense shortly after Trump returned to the White Home for a second time period.
Petro refused to obtain U.S. army flights of deported migrants, acquiescing solely after Trump threatened heavy tariffs on Colombian items.
After Petro gave a speech on the United Nations Basic Meeting slamming U.S. assist for Israel and calling on American troops to disobey Trump and “obey the orders of humanity,” the State Division introduced it was revoking the visa of Petro and several other of his relations.
Within the fall, Trump accused Petro of failing to cease cocaine manufacturing — and of being a drug trafficker.
Washington eliminated Colombia’s certification that it’s doing sufficient to eradicate cocaine crops and halted help to the nation, which in 2023 surpassed $740 million. The Colombian authorities recalled its ambassador to america.
Tensions peaked after the U.S. bombed Caracas and captured Maduro final month.
Petro stated the U.S. had “kidnapped” Maduro and dared Trump to launch the same strike in Colombia. “Come get me. I’m ready for you right here,” he stated.
Trump didn’t discard the potential for a U.S. army operation in Colombia, saying, “It sounds good to me.”
Relations thawed with a Jan. 7 telephone name between the leaders, through which they agreed to satisfy in particular person. The U.S. granted Petro a short lived visa in order that he might go to the White Home.
Colombian officers stated Petro deliberate to give attention to defending his report in deterring drug trafficking, despite the fact that cocaine manufacturing is rising in Colombia. Appearing Justice Minister Andrés Idárraga Franco lately stated that Petro’s administration has extradited extra criminals to america than any of his conservative predecessors, together with one accused trafficker who was delivered to U.S. authorities this week.
Reporters are sometimes allowed into the Oval Workplace to ask questions of forward of conferences between Trump and different heads of state, however they weren’t on Tuesday.
Though Trump praised the assembly as productive, he tempered his reward.
“You realize, he and I weren’t precisely the most effective of mates,” Trump stated. “However I wasn’t insulted as a result of I’d by no means met him. I didn’t know him in any respect. And we bought alongside very properly.”
Chatting with journalists on the Colombian Embassy in Washington after the assembly, Petro talked about local weather change and criticized the U.S. operation in Venezuela and what he described because the “genocide” in Gaza.
He stated Trump gave him one in all his trademark crimson ball caps. He stated he took a pen to alter Trump’s slogan, in order that it now reads: “Make Americas Nice Once more.”
Instances employees author Ana Ceballos in Washington contributed to this report.
