Colombian President Gustavo Petro plans to meet with President Donald Trump at the White House on Tuesday. File Photo by Mauricio Duenas Casteneda/EPA
Colombian President Gustavo Petro arrived in Washington to begin an official state visit that includes a planned meeting with President Donald Trump on Tuesday at the White House.
The visit comes after a year marked by tensions between the two governments, including disagreements over migration, drug trafficking and regional policy, as well as verbal exchanges between the two presidents.
“The president is carrying out an official agenda in Washington, D.C., aimed at strengthening international cooperation, bilateral political dialogue, and academic and community meetings, in defense of Colombia’s interests and institutional relations with the United States,” the South American country’s presidency reported on its social media accounts.
Before starting the trip, Petro met with the head of mission at the U.S. Embassy in Colombia, John McNamara, and said he was beginning an “intense communication effort with the U.S. government,” according to a post on his X account.
The Colombian president has described the meeting with Trump as “a key, fundamental and decisive meeting,” and said it will allow him to explain directly to U.S. authorities the progress his government has made in the fight against drug trafficking.
“At last, there is communication that allows the president and U.S. authorities to truly know what is happening with the fight we have waged in this government against narcotics in general,” the South American leader said.
Tensions began in January, when Petro rejected the entry into Colombia of flights carrying migrants deported from the United States, which led to tariff threats from Washington.
The two leaders also have different approaches to how drug trafficking should be measured and confronted.
Petro maintains that his government has intensified seizures and operations against criminal networks and wants Washington to “really know what is happening” with Colombia’s strategy — in a context in which the fight against drugs has generated “divergences” and calls for “adjustments” to cooperation from the United States.
The differences are also reflected in indicators and priorities.
Petro’s government has said it distrusts reports by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime on cocaine production and coca cultivation, questioning the methodology, El País reported.
Petro said he believes those figures fuel tensions with Trump, who called him a “drug trafficking leader” and “decertified” the country based on those reports.
The Colombian president reportedly traveled to the United States with a special permit, Revista Cambio said, after the State Department revoked his visa following his inclusion on the so-called Clinton List, a situation that required a temporary authorization to carry out the official visit.
At the same time, analysts cited by Caracol say that for Trump, drug trafficking is a central campaign promise and that his agenda includes stopping the flow of illicit substances, while the meeting is expected to address issues such as drug policy and the extradition of crime bosses.
The case of Nicolás Maduro, detained in the United States after a military operation, is also expected to be part of the meeting’s agenda.
Petro has distanced himself from Donald Trump’s stance. calling on the United States to “return” Maduro to Venezuela so he can be tried by Venezuelan courts.
Trump, by contrast, presented the capture as a security operation and has said Maduro will be prosecuted in the United States, framing the case as part of his regional strategy and efforts to control drug trafficking.
