Colombia’s first leftist chief held talks Thursday with President Biden on the White Home, referring to sharp variations over the right way to combat drug trafficking whereas in search of frequent floor on methods to finish the humanitarian and political disaster in Venezuela.
For Colombian President Gustavo Petro, it was an opportunity to clean relations with Washington, the place some officers harbor doubts concerning the 8-month-old authorities in Bogota.
Biden was anticipated to induce extra cooperation from Petro on immigration, because the variety of Colombian migrants coming into the U.S. illegally has soared in latest months. In March, that complete was second solely to the variety of migrants coming from Mexico.
The assembly was emblematic of the ideological balancing act america tries to navigate in its dealings with Colombia. Usually referred to as Washington’s finest buddy in Latin America, Colombia is, for the primary time, not dominated by a right-wing or centrist pro-U.S. president.
“Colombia is the important thing to the hemisphere,” Biden mentioned, sitting within the Oval Workplace alongside Petro. “I feel now we have a chance, if we work laborious sufficient, to have a Western Hemisphere that’s united, equal, democratic and economically affluent.”
Petro mentioned he believed democracy is one thing that’s “not set in stone,” however “flows” and evolves “like a river” that “results in better democracy and even better freedom.”
“We’re on the identical river” because the U.S., he mentioned.
Petro, as soon as a younger guerrilla fighter in Colombia’s half-century-long civil battle, is certainly one of quite a few leftists who’ve risen to energy throughout Latin America, largely via democratic elections.
Forward of the White Home assembly with Biden, Petro, 63, acknowledged to reporters that there have been “undoubtedly” essential variations between the 2 governments’ insurance policies.
“We consider the battle on medicine has failed,” Petro mentioned. “These final 50 years have proven completely disastrous [results], as a lot right here in america as in our Latin America.”
Colombia, lengthy the world’s largest producer of coca, the uncooked plant materials used to fabricate cocaine, was the main target for practically 20 years beginning in 1999 of Washington’s Plan Colombia, which spent billions of {dollars} in largely army assist to fight drug traffickers and leftist insurgencies.
In 2016, the Colombian authorities and the principal guerrilla group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, often known as FARC, signed a peace deal that ended a lot of the combating and reintegrated many guerrillas into civil society. It earned then-President Juan Manuel Santos the Nobel Peace Prize, however violence is once more spreading via Colombia, significantly in rural areas, as coca cultivation rises as soon as once more.
Regardless of their variations, Petro has made gestures to solidify a great relationship with the Biden administration. He has diminished the coca crop eradication operations favored by the U.S. however, opposite to expectations, has continued a program of extraditing suspected drug traffickers to the U.S. He additionally favors interdiction — going after traffickers — over crop eradication, which impacts impoverished farmers.
Petro is combating sturdy headwinds within the type of criticism from the appropriate, each within the U.S. and in Colombia, together with from a number of Republican U.S. lawmakers who’ve sought to affiliate him with authoritarian leftist leaders from Latin America, reminiscent of Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro and Nicaragua’s Daniel Ortega.
Petro met Wednesday with conservative Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar (R-Fla.) as a part of his rounds on Capitol Hill. The following day, Salazar accused Petro of evading her questions.
“He rambles, he doesn’t reply, he performs for time, the way in which Fidel and Chavez used to do, the way in which Maduro and Ortega do,” she mentioned to a Colombian tv station, referring to late Cuban President Fidel Castro and late Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez. “It’s what the socialists do, to confuse you.”
Forward of Petro’s election final yr, Salazar branded him a socialist, Marxist and terrorist.
Analysts dispute that characterization, noting that Petro is extra mental than fighter today and has a observe document in elected politics, having served as Bogota’s elected mayor and in Congress for a number of phrases.
“There are individuals who want to see a breakdown in U.S.-Colombia relations, however surprisingly he has been dedicated to constructing relations,” mentioned Steve Hege, a Colombia-based program director for the U.S. Institute of Peace.
“His aspirations are precisely what Colombia wants,” Hege added, citing Petro’s plan to finish violence via negotiations with armed teams, and to reform well being and pension programs. However the authorities nonetheless lacks the technical and institutional skills to make these modifications occur, Hege mentioned.
Speaking with armed teams — who come from each the appropriate and left — is a controversial endeavor in a rustic the place greater than a quarter-million folks have been killed by the military, guerrillas or right-wing paramilitary squads throughout the Western Hemisphere’s longest armed battle.
Biden and Petro might discover probably the most mutually useful concern between them to be a extra productive method to the disaster in Venezuela.
In the course of the Trump administration, years of extreme financial sanctions, diplomatic ostracism and even the specter of army intervention didn’t dislodge Maduro, a socialist autocrat now not ruling with a democratic mandate. A few of these punitive measures in opposition to Colombia have continued into the Biden administration, additionally with out end result.
Maduro succeeded the much more in style Chávez upon his loss of life in 2013, and has overseen the smash of his once-wealthy nation’s financial system, together with the repression and compelled exodus of a whole lot of 1000’s of residents.
In his public look with Petro on Thursday, Biden praised and thanked Colombia for receiving Venezuelan immigrants, typically giving them jobs and authorized residency.
Subsequent week, Petro will convene a global convention in Bogota aimed toward bringing the Venezuelan authorities and its opposition into significant negotiations. The U.S. will ship a delegation, together with practically 20 different nations, Petro mentioned.
Counting on his leftist credentials, Petro reopened diplomatic ties with Caracas that had been severed by his predecessor and seems to have gained some belief with the Maduro authorities.
“Everyone’s out of concepts right here in Washington about the right way to assist information Venezuela again to democracy within the close to time period,” mentioned Adam Isacson, a safety professional on the Washington Workplace on Latin America. “There’s area for a artistic third get together to assist.”
Nonetheless at concern is whether or not the U.S. and Europe will ease some sanctions to encourage Venezuela to curtail repression there, or if motion towards democracy has to return earlier than the West removes punishment.
If Petro can fill the function of a balanced mediator, he stands to realize regionally by reviving industrial relations between Colombia and Venezuela, and internationally by ameliorating one of many hemisphere’s most nagging crises.
“From the U.S. perspective, it positions Colombia as an essential interlocutor to maneuver Maduro towards advancing democracy,” mentioned Jason Marczak, senior director of the Adrienne Arsht Latin America Middle on the Atlantic Council, a Washington suppose tank. “Colombia is a linchpin for our coverage in Latin America.”
One space during which Petro and Biden discovered stable convergence was on local weather change. Each enthusiastically endorsed a transfer away from fossil fuels and towards a extra “decarbonized” world.
“We have to transfer from fossil fuels, from the greed of fossil fuels, which has developed like a hurricane that’s threatening our existence,” Petro mentioned.
“We’re making actual progress towards a carbon-free surroundings,” Biden mentioned.