President Donald Trump and Colombian President Gustavo Petro aren’t the best of friends. Both are loud, obnoxious, and love to be the center of attention. One, Trump, is aiming to strengthen U.S. dominance over Latin America. The other, Petro, was a member of an anti-imperialist insurgent group in his younger days before entering politics and becoming Colombia’s first leftist president in 2022.
They finally met at the White House on Tuesday. It was a session that the U.S. and Colombian foreign policy establishments hope will mend their personal relations after more than a year of the two men being at each other’s throats. Tensions began immediately after the U.S. president returned to the White House. Trump threatened to impose 25% tariffs on Colombian goods and slap diplomatic sanctions on Colombian officials over Petro’s refusal to cooperate with Washington’s deportation policies. Tensions have subsequently focused on U.S. strikes against alleged drug smugglers operating out of Colombia and Venezuela. Trump had certified Colombia as a major drug-producing country and stripped Petro and his family of their U.S. visas. Up until last month, Trump was even talking openly about bombing Colombian drug labs and musing about doing to Petro what he did to former Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro.
Fortunately, Tuesday’s meeting seemed to go quite well. The men shook hands, walked along the White House complex, and Petro gifted Trump some Colombian coffee. The White House and Petro’s office shared photos of the sit-down on their respective social media accounts. The mood was relatively jovial. Petro has been one of Trump’s favorite punching bags, periodically referring to the Colombian president as a “drug-dealer” who is shipping cocaine to the United States.
The détente is good news. It’s hard to see any Colombian government, no matter its political leanings, signing on to unilateral U.S. operations on Colombian soil or turning the other cheek if U.S. strikes happened without its consent. Nor should Washington tempt fate; Colombia is the source for the vast majority of U.S. intelligence on drug routes through the Caribbean Sea, a key leverage point for Bogota in any negotiations. If anything, the mutual objective of countering drug trafficking might just be enough to smooth over the personal animus at the top. U.S. and Colombian defense and intelligence officials continue to collaborate on a daily basis despite the verbal jousting from their bosses, which suggests that both sides understand just how valuable the other is to their respective goals.
What happens next?
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The Trump administration is waging a literal war on drugs, focusing on wiping out production and capturing high-level cartel leaders. Petro, like many leaders in Latin America, has never bought into this supply-focused strategy and frequently pleads with the Americans to spend more time on decreasing the demand for drugs stateside. In turn, Trump is pressing the Colombian government to get far more aggressive against the National Liberation Army guerrilla group, which has replaced the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia as the country’s principal drug trafficking organization. Petro, while heeding those wishes for his own reasons, has never given up on the notion that he can strike a peace deal with these criminal groups.
Either way, Trump can rest easy: Petro will be out of office in the summer. Then it’s his successor’s problem.