No trace of the combative Bolivarian who paraded the sword of the Liberator in front of the king of Spain on the day of his investiture. Nothing remained of the defiant leader who snapped at Donald Trump“come for me”, after the threats immediately after the capture of Nicolas Maduro in Venezuela.
He Gustavo Petro who attended his appointment at the White House this Tuesday was a docile, smiling and tremendously friendly Petro with the American president to whom he has dedicated so many disqualifications in the last year.
The Colombian president appeared with a delegation made up of his chancellor, Rosa Villavicencio; the defense minister, Pedro Arnulfoand the ambassador in Washington, Daniel García-Peña.
Precisely the latter was carrying a folder in which one could read: “Colombia, the number one ally of the United States in the fight against drug trafficking”, and that is what the meeting was about: to demonstrate to Trump that the Colombian Government was not only not an ally of the cartels, but rather their victim, as Petro has repeated on several occasions.
In fact, just a few hours before the meeting, Petro sent a powerful message with the extradition of Pipe Tulúaboss of the La Inmaculada criminal gang and persecuted for years by the United States for drug trafficking crimes.
The stormy relationship between the two leaders began to soften after the call they had on January 7 and since then it does not seem to have stopped improving.
“I don’t know how, but after what happened in Venezuela, he has become very kind… his attitude has changed a lot,” Trump ironically said on Monday, in clear reference to the fact that Petro has been able to draw the necessary conclusions from what happened with Maduro: avoiding direct contact with Trump and opting for confrontation can destroy the Delta Force in the presidential palace under any excuse.
Rubio’s plans
Both leaders came so close to a total break that, in principle, Petro is still prohibited from entering the United States.
The Colombian president had to request a special visa to be able to attend the meeting in the Oval Office, a real nonsense.
There, apart from Trump, he met the vice president J.D. Vanceto whom these things seem to give him a certain laziness, and with the secretary of state, Marco Rubio.
Rubio, who was key in the intervention in Venezuela and is key in the energy suffocation of Cuba, has become the true protagonist of US policies regarding the “Western Hemisphere”, as the American continent, north and south, is known in White House jargon.
Donald Trump receives Gustavo Petro at the White House.
Reuters
It was Rubio’s decision to place Delcy Rodriguez as Maduro’s successor and her command of Spanish surely helped make it clear to Petro that he must collaborate.
No matter how supportive the Trump Administration is of unilateralism, the Secretary of State knows that entering Caracas and deposing a dictator is not the same as doing the same, as Trump threatened, with a democratically elected leader.
Petro also knows this, but he faces an unpredictable enemy and the pressure for him to adopt a friendlier tone despite his guerrilla past and his taste for dialectical drama has had to be tremendous.
“A great honor”
Although the details of the meeting have not yet been made public, beyond a few photos, Petro proudly published on his
Believe it or not, this is the same man who, just before getting on the plane, asked the Colombian people to fill the streets in support of freedom and as a sign of strength before his visit. The same one who called Trump, “complicit in genocide” in the middle of the United Nations Assembly for his alleged passivity in the face of Israel’s attacks on the civilian population of Gaza.
Petro has only a few months left in his term and it is assumed that he prefers to bear the consequences of these inconsistencies before the electorate before he does so. Ivan Cepedahis successor at the head of Pacto Historico and current leader in the polls.
That said, it will be interesting to see how Cepeda and his coalition manage their relationship with Trump: will they opt for belligerent populism or will they simply sidestep the issue to avoid disagreements?
In principle, the favorite candidate for the White House is Abelardo de la Espriellawhich has been warning for some time of possible electoral fraud by the current president and which considers Trump a safeguard of the democratic process.
By putting one candle to God and another to the devil, the United States ensures at least a cordial relationship with either of the two winners… as long as Cepeda, of course, does not cross the line and returns to the diplomatic tension that Petro seems to have resigned himself to leaving behind.
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