WASHINGTON\/BOGOTA: Days after threatening Colombia with military action, US \u200bPresident Donald Trump on Wednesday said arrangements were being made for the country\u2019s President Gustavo Petro to visit the White House, following a call between the two leaders. Trump and Petro said they discussed relations between the two countries in their first call since the US president on Sunday said that a US military operation focused on Colombia\u2019s government \u201csounds good\u201d to him. That threat followed Trump ordering the US capture of the president of neighboring Venezuela, who \u200cwas flown to \u200cthe US to face drug and weapons charges.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt \u200cwas \u2060a \u200bgreat honor \u200cto speak with the President of Colombia, Gustavo Petro, who called to explain the situation of drugs and other disagreements that we have had. I appreciated his call and tone, and look forward to meeting him in the near future,\u201d Trump wrote on social media.<\/p>\n
Trump added \u201carrangements are being made\u201d for a meeting in Washington between himself and Petro, Colombia\u2019s first leftist president, but gave no specific \u2060date for a meeting.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have spoken by phone for the first time since he became president,\u201d Petro \u200ctold supporters gathered at a rally in \u200dBogota meant to celebrate Colombia\u2019s sovereignty, \u200dadding he had requested a restart of dialogue between the two countries.<\/p>\n
A \u200dsource in Petro\u2019s office told Reuters the call was \u201ccordial\u201d and \u201crespectful.\u201d<\/p>\n
Relations between Trump and Petro have been frosty since the Republican returned to the White House in January 2025.<\/p>\n
Trump has repeatedly accused the administration of Petro, without evidence, of enabling a steady \u200bflow of cocaine into the US, imposing sanctions on the Colombian leader in October.<\/p>\n
On Sunday Trump referred to Petro as \u201ca sick \u2060man, who likes making cocaine and selling it to the United States.\u201d<\/p>\n
The US in September had revoked Petro\u2019s visa after he joined a pro-Palestinian demonstration in New York following a meeting of the United Nations General Assembly and called on US soldiers to \u201cdisobey the orders of Trump.\u201d<\/p>\n
Petro, who has been a vocal opponent of Israel\u2019s war in Gaza, had accused Trump of being \u201ccomplicit in genocide\u201d in Gaza and called for \u201ccriminal proceedings\u201d over US missile attacks on suspected drug-running boats in Caribbean waters.<\/p>\n
The Trump administration has carried out more than 30 strikes against suspected drug boats since September, in a campaign that has killed at least \u200c110 people.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
WASHINGTON\/BOGOTA: Days after threatening Colombia with military action, US \u200bPresident Donald Trump on Wednesday said arrangements were being made for the country\u2019s President Gustavo Petro to visit the White House, following a call between the two leaders. Trump and Petro said they discussed relations between the two countries in their first call since the US …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":91979,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-91959","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91959","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=91959"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91959\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":91980,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91959\/revisions\/91980"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/91979"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=91959"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=91959"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=91959"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}