President Trump just lately known 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 — largely — in a closed-door assembly on the White Home that each described as productive.
Trump described the two-hour dialog, which touched on vitality, Venezuela and bilateral efforts to fight drug trafficking, as “improbable.”
Petro, in flip, known as the confab “very constructive” and mentioned 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 fingers, 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 year 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. help 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 a number of 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 mentioned the U.S. had “kidnapped” Maduro and dared Trump to launch a comparable strike in Colombia. “Come get me. I’m ready for you right here,” he mentioned.
Trump didn’t discard the chance of a U.S. army operation in Colombia, saying, “It sounds good to me.”
Relations thawed with a Jan. 7 cellphone name between the leaders, during which they agreed to fulfill in individual. The U.S. granted Petro a momentary visa in order that he may go to the White Home.
Colombian officers mentioned Petro deliberate to concentrate on defending his document in deterring drug trafficking, despite the fact that cocaine manufacturing is rising in Colombia. Appearing Justice Minister Andrés Idárraga Franco just lately mentioned 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 usually 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 understand, he and I weren’t precisely the most effective of buddies,” Trump mentioned. “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 acquired alongside very nicely.”
Chatting with journalists on the Colombian Embassy in Washington after the assembly, Petro talked about local weather change, criticized the U.S. operation in Venezuela and what he described because the “genocide” in Gaza.
He mentioned Trump gave him one of his trademark purple ball caps. He mentioned he took a pen to alter Trump’s slogan, in order that it now reads: “Make Americas Nice Once more.”
Occasions employees author Ana Ceballos in Washington contributed to this report.
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