President Trump just lately referred to as Colombia’s chief, Gustavo Petro, a “sick man who likes making cocaine and promoting it to the USA.”
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 — at a closed-door assembly on the White Home that each described as productive.
Trump described the two-hour-long dialog, which touched on power, Venezuela and bilateral efforts to fight drug trafficking, as “unbelievable.”
Petro, in flip, referred to as the confab “very constructive” and stated it had “optimistic and constructive tone.”
He introduced Trump Colombian espresso, and First Girl Melania Trump a robe crafted by indigenous artisans.
Trump gifted him a framed portrait of the 2 males shaking arms scrawled with the phrases: “I really 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 latest U.S. operation to seize Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.
But it did appeared to ease tensions between Colombia and the USA, longtime allies whose relationship soured over the past 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, relinquishing solely after Trump threatened heavy tariffs on imports of Colombian items.
After Petro gave a speech on the United Nations Normal Meeting slamming U.S. assist for Israel and calling on American troopers to disobey Trump and “obey the orders of humanity,” the State Division introduced it was revoking the visa of Petro and a number of other of his members of the family.
Final fall, Trump accused Petro of failing to cease cocaine manufacturing — and of being a drug trafficker himself.
Washington eliminated Colombia’s certification that it’s doing sufficient to get rid of cocaine crops and halted help to Colombia, which in 2023 surpassed $740 million. The Colombian authorities recalled its ambassador to the USA.
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 an analogous strike in Colombia. “Come get me. I’m ready for you right here,” he stated.
Trump didn’t discard the opportunity of a U.S. army operation in Colombia, saying, “It sounds good to me.”
Relations thawed with a Jan. 7 telephone name between the leaders, wherein they agreed to fulfill in individual. The U.S. granted Petro a brief visa in order that he may go to the White Home.
Colombian officers stated Petro deliberate to give attention to defending his document in deterring drug trafficking, despite the fact that cocaine manufacturing is rising in Colombia. Appearing Minister of Justice Andrés Idárraga Franco just lately stated that Petro’s administration has extradited extra criminals to the USA than any of his conservative predecessors, together with one alleged 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.
Whereas Trump praised the assembly as productive, he tempered his reward.
“You understand, he and I weren’t precisely the perfect 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 nicely.”
Talking to 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 stated Trump gave him one in all his trademark pink ballcaps. He stated he took a pen to vary Trump’s slogan, including an “s,” in order that it now reads: “Make Americas Nice Once more.”
Instances staffer Ana Ceballos contributed reporting from Washington.
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