WASHINGTON, Feb 4 — US President Donald Trump and Colombian President Gustavo Petro indicated yesterday that they had a cordial meeting in their first face-to-face encounter, defying the fears of some analysts and advisers who questioned whether the two would get along given their clashing ideologies and reputations for unpredictability.
Petro arrived at the White House without the public fanfare afforded to some foreign leaders, and no media were allowed to attend the roughly two-hour meeting. In separate remarks afterward, neither leader clearly stated that they walked away with concrete agreements.
Asked by reporters later in the afternoon if they had come to an accord to counter narcotics flows coming from Colombia, Trump said the two leaders were working on it.
“Yeah, we did,” Trump said. “We worked on it, and we got along very well. He and I weren’t exactly the best of friends, but I wasn’t insulted because I never met him. I didn’t know him at all.”
Following the meeting, Petro posted a photo on X with a note apparently handwritten by Trump with the words: “Gustavo — A great honour — I love Colombia.” It also contained a photograph of the two leaders shaking hands and smiling.
“What I sensed or saw through the press and social networks that looked like contradictions with my ideas - I didn’t see them there. I think they were more with other officials than with him,” Petro said in an interview with Colombian radio station Caracol.
Petro said he asked Trump to help capture major drug traffickers living outside Colombia.
“I showed him the proper names and aliases of the bosses who dominate the bosses in Colombia and who live abroad, including in the United States.”
Petro also said he asked the US president to mediate a diplomatic spat between Colombia and neighbouring Ecuador, whose president, Daniel Noboa, is a staunch Trump ally.
Leaders have criticised each other
Trump, who has voiced a desire for American dominance over all of Latin America, has in recent months had an up-and-down relationship with Petro, a former anti-imperialist guerrilla who was elected Colombia’s president in 2022.
In October, Trump called Petro an “illegal drug leader” though he provided no evidence, and in January, he mooted military action against the longtime ally, which he has accused of failing to control the narcotics trade.
Petro has been harshly critical of Trump. He has said the Trump administration’s deadly strikes on alleged drug boats amount to war crimes and he described the US operation last month deposing Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro as a “kidnapping.”
In January, the two leaders held a phone call that both described positively, a surprise thaw that resulted in Petro’s invitation to Washington. Trump told reporters on Monday that Petro’s tone had changed of late, implying that he had become more acquiescent after the Maduro raid.
‘The stakes are high’
At the Tuesday meeting, Colombian officials planned to deliver a detailed presentation on their main anti-drug achievements, including figures on cocaine seizures, according to three sources with knowledge of the matter.
In one photo released by the White House, a Petro aide can be seen holding a pamphlet reading: “COLOMBIA: America’s #1 Ally against Narcoterrorists.”
Trump told reporters the two leaders were working on sanctions, without elaborating. Petro himself is under US sanctions - which the Trump administration issued in October - for alleged but unproven links to the drug trade, which Petro has denied.
If the leaders had failed to reach a more lasting rapprochement, it could have had profound implications for regional security, analysts said.
Colombia is the world’s top producer of coca, the main ingredient in cocaine, and several US-designated terrorist organisations are present in the country.
But it has also been one of Washington’s staunchest allies in the region, working closely with successive administrations to suppress drug flows northward.
Under Petro, coca production in Colombia has climbed, though the exact figures are a matter of dispute. Bogota argues that while the government has shifted away from forced eradication — a policy that can harm subsistence farmers — it has ramped up seizures and more sophisticated interdiction efforts.
Last week, Petro urged Colombian migrants to return from Chile, Argentina and the United States so as not to be treated like “slaves.” He also said it is better to live in Havana than in Miami, which he described as traffic-clogged and cultureless. — Reuters
