For months, US President Donald Trump has called him a “sick man” and “an illegal drug leader.”
But on Tuesday, President Trump welcomed Colombian national Gustavo Petro to the White House for their first face-to-face meeting in Washington, D.C.
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Both leaders praised the meeting as productive, although they acknowledged that tensions that divide the two countries persist.
At a news conference after the meeting, Petro dismissed questions about his checkered past with Trump, who has publicly accused him of human rights abuses.
Instead, he called the interaction “a meeting of two equals with different ways of thinking.”
“He didn’t change his mind. I didn’t change either. But how do you make agreements and agreements? It’s not between twin brothers. It’s between adversaries,” Petro said.
Separately, President Trump told reporters from the Oval Office that he was satisfied with the meeting. “I thought it was amazing,” he said.
Topics for the two leaders included combating cross-border drug trafficking and security in Latin America.
Here are five takeaways from Tuesday’s meeting.
White House charm offensive
Over the past year, President Trump has often invited the media to meetings with foreign leaders and held press conferences with visiting dignitaries in the Oval Office.
However, that is not the case this time. The meeting between Trump and Petro lasted nearly two hours and was entirely private.
However, both leaders made generally positive statements about each other.
Petro said in a social media post that President Trump gave him several items, including a commemorative photo from the meeting with a signed note.
It read, “Gustavo, it’s a great honor. I love Colombia,” followed by President Trump’s signature.
In another post, Petro showed off a signed copy of President Trump’s book “The Art of the Deal.” On its title page, President Trump scrawled another note to Mr. Petro. “You’re great”.
“Can someone please tell me what Trump said in this dedication?” Petro jokingly wrote in Spanish on social media. “I don’t understand English very well.”
A turning point in the tense relationship?
Petro’s joke appeared to be a cheeky nod to his notoriously rocky relationship with Trump.
Trump and Petro’s feud began on January 26, 2025, just six days into President Trump’s second term, when they began exchanging threats on social media over the fate of two deportation flights from the United States.
Petro disputed reports of human rights violations faced by deportees. Meanwhile, President Trump characterized Petro’s initial refusal to accept the plane as a threat to the “national security” of the United States. Petro ultimately withdrew after President Trump threatened tough sanctions on imports from Colombia.
Over the next few months, they continued to trade barbs. For example, Petro condemned deadly attacks on boats by the United States in the Caribbean and Pacific Ocean, comparing the attacks to murder.
He also criticized President Trump for carrying out a military strike in Venezuela to kidnap then-President Nicolas Maduro. Petro said the attack amounted to a “kidnapping.”
Meanwhile, President Trump revoked Petro’s U.S. visa after the Colombian leader attended the United Nations General Assembly, criticized the United States, and briefly took part in pro-Palestinian protests.
The Trump administration also sanctioned Petro in October, accusing left-wing leaders of allowing “drug cartels to flourish.”
After President Maduro was ousted from power on January 3, President Trump warned Petro: “You better watch your attitude.” This statement was widely interpreted as a threat of military action against Colombia.
But Mr. Trump and Mr. Petro appear to have reached a tipping point last month. On January 7, the two leaders had their first telephone conversation. Tuesday’s in-person meeting marked a new first in their relationship.
agree to disagree
Despite the easing of tensions, the two leaders reaffirmed their differences in official statements after the meeting.
President Trump held a press conference in the Oval Office to sign the bill to end the government shutdown and speak first.
The US president, a right-wing Republican, used the appearance to reflect on the political tensions between the two leaders ahead of the meeting.
“He and I weren’t necessarily best friends, but I didn’t feel insulted because I had never met him,” Trump told reporters.
Still, he added that Tuesday’s meeting was enjoyable. “I didn’t know him at all, but we got along really well.”
Meanwhile, Petro held a lengthy press conference at the Colombian embassy in Washington, D.C., where he outlined several differences with Trump.
Among the topics he mentioned were Israel’s genocidal war in the U.S.-backed Gaza Strip and sustainable energy efforts toward carbon neutrality. President Trump has called so-called green energy programs a “scam” in the past.
Petro, Colombia’s first leftist leader, also reflected on the region’s history of colonialism and foreign intervention. He told reporters it was important for Latin America to make its own decisions without being “coerced” from outside.
“We’re not operating under duress,” he said at one point, apparently referring to President Trump’s pressure campaign.
A different approach to combating drug trafficking
One of the key points of contention, however, was Petro’s approach to combating drug trafficking.
Colombia is the world’s largest producer of cocaine, accounting for 68 percent of the world’s supply.
The Trump administration is using the fight against global drug trafficking as a justification for carrying out deadly military attacks on the high seas and in Venezuela, even though experts have condemned them as illegal under international law.
It also stripped Colombia of its status as an ally in global counternarcotics efforts.
President Trump’s White House said it would consider reversing that decision if Petro takes “more aggressive actions to eradicate coca and reduce cocaine production and trafficking.”
But Mr. Petro has rejected any attempts to label him soft on drug trafficking, instead touting historic drug raids that the government has overseen.
He reiterated this claim after Tuesday’s meeting, arguing that no other Colombian government has done as much to combat cocaine trafficking.
Petro argued that voluntary eradication programs have been more successful than a military approach to destroying coca crops, the raw material for cocaine.
The initiative had succeeded in “encouraging thousands of farmers to uproot their own plants,” he said.
“These are two different methods, two different ways of understanding how to combat drug trafficking,” Petro said. “One is brutal, selfish and ultimately supports the power of the mafia and drug traffickers, and the other is a smart and effective approach.”
Petro argued that it was more strategic to go after the heads of drug gangs than to punish poor rural farmers by forcibly stripping them of their crops.
“I told President Trump that if you want allies to fight drug trafficking, go after the core people at the top,” he said.
president trump memo
Tuesday’s meeting ended up being another high-profile reversal for Trump, who has a history of altering his relationships with world leaders.
Last year, for example, he lambasted Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy over a public confrontation in the Oval Office, but months later expressed a favorable attitude toward the wartime leader.
But Colombia is close to a crucial presidential election in May, in which Petro’s left-wing coalition, the Historical Accord, will seek to defend the presidency from powerful far-right forces.
Under Colombian law, Petro himself cannot run for office consecutively. But there is also speculation that Tuesday’s détente with President Trump could help the Petro-coalition avoid U.S. condemnation ahead of the vote.
After all, Colombia was until recently the largest recipient of U.S. aid in South America and has long had close ties with the North American superpower. Therefore, straining these relationships could be seen as an electoral liability.
In his remarks, Petro acknowledged his differences with Trump, but at times expressed views that overlapped with the US president.
Like President Trump before him, Petro used part of his speech on Tuesday to question the role of the United Nations in maintaining global security.
“Have we shown incompetence? Don’t we need reform?” Petro asked aloud, wondering if there was “something better than the United Nations that unites humanity in a better way.”
But when it came to wearing President Trump’s signature “Make America Great Again” baseball cap, Petro drew the line — or rather, the squiggly line.
He took to social media to share the tweaks he made to Cap’s slogan. The jagged Sharpie ink “S” modified the phrase to include the entire Western Hemisphere. “Make America Great Again.”
