Early in the morning of February 2, Colombian President Gustavo Petro posted pictures on his Instagram account in which he can be seen descending from the presidential plane on a visibly cold runway in Washington D.C. The photos were the first official post from what was set to be one of the most anticipated international trips of Petro’s presidency: Petro, a former guerrilla leader whose country was threatened with U.S. bombs just last month, was visiting the Trump White House.
While the Colombian leader has been to Washington before, having visited President Biden in 2023, the stakes of this visit were immense. Since Trump came to office in January 2025, he has targeted Petro relentlessly, accusing him of having ties to the drug trade, targeting him with sanctions, and revoking his visa. Merely a month after the U.S. invasion of Venezuela and the kidnapping of President Nicolás Maduro, and with U.S. drone strikes of alleged “drug boats” off Colombia’s shores continuing, a good outcome was needed.
The full details of their meeting have not yet been released, but early results seem to indicate that tensions between the two leaders have calmed down. This news comes at a crucial time for Colombia, which is set to hold presidential and legislative elections in the coming months. If Petro was indeed able to charm Trump, as initial reports indicate, the Colombian left will stand emboldened, threats of direct intervention may recede, and the rest of Latin America may learn that one can indeed stand up to the Trump administration.
In Trump’s Crosshairs
President Petro has been a target of Trump’s attacks since before he was elected in 2022., However, tensions between the two escalated shortly after Trump returned to power in January 2025 and began his campaign of mass deportations. In late January 2025, Petro refused to accept a plane full of deportees from the United States due to the inhumane treatment of the people on board, sending it back and infuriating Trump in the process. After a series of threatening social media posts between the two leaders, Colombia eventually agreed to accept the migrants, though only on the condition that future deportation flights would treat them humanely.
Though Petro was vilified by the mainstream Colombian media for the spat due to concerns the country would become a target of U.S. sanctions, Petro has remained open to dialogue. He has frequently called for greater collaboration between both countries on drug interdiction and even hosted Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem for a bilateral meeting on security and drug policy. Nevertheless, despite Petro’s offers of peace and the Colombian government’s increased efforts to crack down on the drug trade, in September 2025, the State Department chose to decertify Colombia’s anti-drug trafficking efforts, something it had not done since the 1990s. While largely symbolic, decertification can lead to very real losses in aid and access to international financial markets.
Though Petro was vilified by the mainstream Colombian media for the spat due to concerns the country would become a target of U.S. sanctions, Petro has remained open to dialogue
A week after decertification, Petro participated in the United Nations General Assembly. In his UN speech Petro derided the United States government’s illegal killings of fishermen in the Caribbean and the Pacific coasts of Colombia, the hypocrisy of the war on drugs, and the silence of the international community in the face of the ongoing genocide in Palestine. He then participated in a pro-Palestine rally with Pink Floyd frontman Roger Waters and made a brief speech in which he called on U.S. soldiers to disobey commands that violate human rights. The speech led the Trump administration to revoke Petro’s visa , an unprecedented move for the sitting president of an allied country.
A few weeks later, in October, the Trump administration announced that it would include Petro, members of his family, and Colombian Interior Minister Armando Benedetti in the U.S. Treasury’s Office of Foreign Asset Control list of Specially Designated Nationals—better known as the Clinton list—due to unfounded accusations of ties to the drug trade and terrorism. The Clinton List is meant to prevent those who the U.S. government accuses of having ties to illegal activities like drug trafficking and terrorism from engaging with the U.S. financial system. However, because many businesses and banks maintain relationships with the U.S. financial system, it serves to financially isolate those on the list at a global scale. Because of his inclusion in the list, Petro may face difficulties opening a bank account or buying a house within Colombia.
Maduro’s Kidnapping, Escalating Threats
Tensions continued to build during November 2025, after the White House published a picture from a visit by Republican congresspeople that featured a flyer with an AI generated picture of Petro next to Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro in an orange jumpsuit, a not so subtle reference to their desire to imprison both of them. The photo suggested that the fears that the U.S. planned to isolate Colombia in a similar way to Venezuela and Cuba were no longer the paranoia of pundits. This fear would quickly grow after the Trump administration illegally violated Venezuela’s sovereignty and kidnapped President Maduro and First Lady Cilia Flores early in the morning of January 3rd, 2026.
In the wake of the attack on Venezuela, Trump escalated his threats against the country.
The brute show of force that left up to 100 people dead ignited protests across the political spectrum in Latin America, but it hit particularly hard in Colombia where many feared that the United States might attempt a similar attack against Petro. This was not a hyperbolic fear. In the wake of the attack on Venezuela, Trump escalated his threats against the country, claiming in an interview that an attack against Colombia “sounds good to me” and accusing Petro of running “cocaine factories”. Petro quickly called for diplomatic action at the Organization of American States and United Nations Security Council, where Colombia currently holds a seat, to denounce the illegal action before the international community. He also called on Colombians in the country’s major cities to protest and defend the country’s sovereignty. He went so far as to state in various public comments that if he needed to take up arms again to defend Colombian sovereignty, he would do so for the first time since his reincorporation into civilian life in the 1990s.
Activists filling Bogotá’s Plaza Bolivar to show their support for the embattled President were greeted with a surprise. Arriving late to his own speech, Petro announced that he had called Trump to voice his concerns directly, the first such discussion between the two leaders. Petro announced that during the conversation he had decided to personally meet with Trump to talk things out in the White House and debunk the lies about his commitment to eradicating the drug trade.
Petro in D.C.
Upon landing in D.C. Petro avoided the public events that were characteristic of his previous visits to the United States, choosing instead to publish pictures with family members and members of his team that he had invited to accompany him, including Foreign Minister Rosa Villavicencio Mapy and Minister of Defense Pedro Sánchez. Petro also reportedly brought a gift basket for President Trump that included coffee and chocolates produced by campesinos who took part in a coca substitution program, as well a dress by an indigenous designer for First Lady Melania Trump.
The meeting seems to have fulfilled the main goals of the Colombian government to ease tensions and establish an open dialogue despite ideological differences between the two leaders.
While the meeting was not open to the public, photos of the event reveal that Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and Senator Bernie Moreno also participated in the meeting—the latter two people with whom Petro has frequently sparred. Nevertheless, the photos of the meeting showed a respectful exchange between the two parties. Indeed, the meeting seems to have fulfilled the main goals of the Colombian government to ease tensions and establish an open dialogue despite ideological differences between the two leaders.
In a press conference a few hours after the meeting, Petro stated that the two sides were able to talk as equals despite their differences and find a shared vision of freedom. In response to a question from the media, he stated that he did not bring up the fact that he was on the Clinton list to Trump. He also stated that he asked Trump to declassify U.S. intelligence documents related to the country’s internal conflict. In a brief comment to the press, President Trump also similarly said that the meeting went well, referring to Petro as “a terrific person” and stating that they touched on many issues, including sanctions.
The Colombian Left, Emboldened
The meeting’s positive outcome will likely be disappointing to Colombia’s conservative opposition. Indeed, as legislative and presidential elections approach in March and May respectively, the right has made Petro’s alleged instability and weakening of ties to the United States a central part of their campaign. While Trump may very well still interfere in Colombia’s elections to boost right-wing candidates—as he did in the case of Honduras and Argentina—for now, that fear appears to have died down just as Petro’s approval rating has climbed to its highest point in years.
Benefitting from this positive meeting, too, was Iván Cepeda, a left-wing senator and human rights activist who, as it stands, is the clear front-runner to be Colombia’s next president.
Cepeda particularly benefits due to the fact that his calm demeanor contrasts with Petro’s firebrand style, demonstrating his ability to be a skilled negotiator in any future encounters with his potential U.S. counterpart. It also serves to benefit the ruling Pacto Histórico coalition, which can now place this victory alongside many others, including an increased minimum wage, a labor reform that vastly expands the rights of the Colombian working class, and a significant reduction in poverty.
While it may be too soon to tell, the meeting seems to have calmed tensions and made a possible direct intervention by Trump less likely—for now. It also serves to show that Petro can be a skilled negotiator and a peacemaker, characteristics that may prove helpful if he strives to play a role on the international stage in his post-presidential career. For the rest of Latin America, the meeting may prove to show that the “Donroe Doctrine” has its limits—and that the U.S.’s illegal intervention in Venezuela does not have to mean the end of sovereignty for the region.
Cruz Bonlarron Martínez is an independent writer and was a Fulbright Fellow in Colombia from 2021–2022. His writing on politics, human rights, and culture in Latin America and the Latin American diaspora has appeared in various U.S. and international publications.