‘A huge honour’: Highlights from Trump’s meeting with Colombia’s Petro – donald trump news

For months, United States President Donald Trump has called him a “sick man” and an “illegal drug leader”.

But on Tuesday, Trump welcomed his Colombian counterpart, Gustavo Petro, to the White House for their first face-to-face meeting in Washington DC.

Both leaders described the meeting as meaningful while also acknowledging the tensions dividing them.

At a news conference after their meeting, Petrou shrugged off questions about his difficult history with Trump, whom he has publicly accused of human rights violations.

Instead, he called this interaction “a meeting between two similar people who have different ways of thinking”.

Petro said, “He didn’t change his way of thinking. Neither did I. But how do you make a compromise, a compromise? This is not between twin brothers. This is between adversaries.”

Separately, Trump told reporters from the Oval Office that he felt good about the meeting. “I thought it was awesome,” he said.

The agenda of the two leaders included issues such as the fight against international drug trafficking and security in Latin America.

Here are five takeaways from Tuesday’s meeting.

white house charm offensive

In the past year, Trump has invited the media to attend his meetings with foreign leaders, often holding news conferences with visiting dignitaries in the Oval Office.

However, not this time. The meeting between Trump and Petro lasted about two hours, all of which took place behind closed doors.

But both leaders emerged with largely positive things to say about each other.

In a post on social media, Petro revealed that Trump gifted him several things, including memorial photo Accomplished their meeting with a signed note.

It read, “Gustavo – a big honour. I love Colombia,” followed by Trump’s signature.

In the other, PostPetro showed a signed copy of Trump’s book, The Art of the Deal. On its title page, Trump wrote another note for Petro: “You’re great.”

“Can anyone tell me what Trump said in this dedication?” Petro wrote jokingly in Spanish on social media. “I don’t understand much English.”

A turning point in a strained relationship?

Petro’s joke appeared to be a cheeky nod to his notoriously rocky relationship with Trump.

On January 26, 2025, only six days into Trump’s second term, he and Petro began feuding and making threats on social media over the fate of two US deportation flights.

Petro objected to alleged human rights violations faced by the deported peoples. Meanwhile, Trump considered Petro’s initial refusal to accept flights a threat to America’s “national security”. Petro eventually backed down after Trump threatened tough sanctions on imported Colombian goods.

He continued to trade barbs in the months that followed. For example, Petro has condemned deadly US attacks on boats in the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean and compared these attacks to assassination.

He has also criticised Trump for carrying out the US military strike in Venezuela for kidnapping then-President Nicolas Maduro. The attack was tantamount to “kidnapping”, Petro said.

Meanwhile, Trump stripped Petro of his US visa after the Colombian leader attended the UN General Assembly, where he criticised the US and briefly joined pro-Palestine protests.

The Trump administration also sanctioned Petro in October, accusing the leftist leader of allowing “drug cartels to flourish”.

After Maduro was ousted from power on January 3, Trump warned Petro: he had better “watch his guard”. This statement was widely interpreted as a threat of military action against Colombia.

But Trump and Petro appeared to have reached a turning point last month. On January 7, the two leaders spoke together for the first time. Tuesday’s personal meeting marked another first in their relationship.

agree to disagree

Despite the easing of tensions, both leaders used their public statements after the meeting to reaffirm their differences.

Trump was the first to hold a news conference in the Oval Office while signing legislation to end the government shutdown.

The US President, a member of the right-wing Republican Party, used the appearance to reflect the political tension that had arisen between the two leaders ahead of the meeting.

“He and I weren’t exactly good friends, but I wasn’t insulted, because I never met him,” Trump told reporters.

He said that Tuesday’s meeting was still pleasant. “I didn’t know him at all, and we got along great.”

Meanwhile, Petro held a lengthy press conference at the Colombian Embassy in Washington DC, where he raised some points of difference with Trump.

Among the topics he mentioned were Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza, which the US has supported, and sustainable energy initiatives designed to be carbon neutral. Trump, in the past, has called so-called green energy programmes a “scam”.

Petro, Colombia’s first leftist leader, also reflected on his region’s history with colonialism and foreign intervention. He told reporters it was important that Latin America decide for itself, free from any outside “pressure”.

“We do not operate under blackmail,” he said at one point, in an apparent reference to Trump’s pressure campaigns.

Different approaches to combating drug trafficking

One of the primary points of contention, however, was Petro’s approach to combating drug trafficking.

Colombia is the largest producer of cocaine in the world, accounting for 68 per cent of the global supply.

The Trump administration has used the fight against global drug trafficking as justification for carrying out deadly military strikes in international waters and in Venezuela, despite experts saying the attacks are illegal under international law.

It has also stripped Colombia of its certification as a partner in its global anti-narcotics operations.

Trump’s White House said he would consider reversing that decision if Petro “takes more aggressive action to eradicate coca and reduce cocaine production and trafficking.”

But Petro has rejected any attempts to portray him as soft on drug trafficking, instead citing historic drug busts conducted by his government.

He made this argument again after Tuesday’s meeting, claiming that no other Colombian administration has done as much as his to fight cocaine trafficking.

Rather than taking a militarised approach to destroying crops of coca, the raw ingredient of cocaine, Petro argued that he had more success with voluntary eradication programmes.

The effort was successful in “motivating thousands of farmers to uproot the saplings themselves,” he said.

“These are two different approaches, two different ways of understanding how to fight drug trafficking,” Petro said. “One that is cruel and selfish and what ultimately does is promote mafia powers and drug traffickers, and the other approach, which is intelligent, which is effective.”

Petro said it was more strategic to go after top drug ringleaders than to punish poor rural farmers by forcibly destroying their crops.

“I told President Trump, if you want an ally in fighting drug trafficking, it has to be to go after the top gangsters,” he said.

a trumpian note

Tuesday’s meeting ultimately proved to be another high-profile reversal for Trump, who has a history of veering into his relations with world leaders.

Last year, for example, he lashed out at Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in a public clash in the Oval Office, months after warming up to the wartime leader.

But Colombia is fast approaching a crucial presidential election in May, in which Petro’s leftist coalition, the Historic Pact, will try to defend the presidency against a rising right wing.

Petro himself cannot hold office continuously under Colombian law. But there is speculation that Tuesday’s showdown with Trump could help Petro’s alliance avoid US condemnation ahead of the vote.

After all, Colombia was until recently the largest recipient of US aid in South America, and it has long maintained close ties with the North American superpower. Therefore, straining those relations can be seen as an electoral liability.

While Petro acknowledged his differences with Trump during his remarks, at times he expressed some views that matched those of the US president.

Like Trump, Petro used part of his speech on Tuesday to question the role of the United Nations in maintaining global security.

“Doesn’t this show incompetence? Isn’t there a need for improvement?” Petro wondered aloud if there was “something better than the United Nations that would better bring humanity together”.

But when it came to wearing Trump’s signature “Make America Great Again” baseball cap, Petrou drew a line — or rather, a crooked line.

On social media he shared the adjustments he made to the cap’s slogan. A jagged, Sharpie-inked “S” amended the phrase to include the entire Western Hemisphere: “Make America Great Again.”