Colombia’s President Gustavo Petro arrived in Washington DC on Sunday for a diplomatic offensive that includes a meeting with his US counterpart Donald Trump.
In Tuesday’s meeting in the White House, Petro will seek to put forth “Colombia’s priorities and the general lines of bilateral work on matters of common interest,” according to the Foreign Ministry.
The State Department provided Petro with a five-day visa that allows the Colombian president to visit his US counterpart months after revoking his visa.
Petro lost his permanent visa in September last year after he called on US soldiers to disobey Trump’s orders while visiting New York City for the annual United Nations General Assembly.
The Colombian president has become one of the most vociferous critics of US foreign policy because of Washington DC’s complicity in the genocide of Palestinians in Gaza and air strikes on suspected drug trafficking vessels that killed more than 120 people in the Caribbean Sea.
While this was ongoing, Trump decertified Colombia as a country that cooperates with his regional counternarcotics policy and cut all aid to the South American country.
Petro was additionally put on a US Treasury blacklist meant for drug traffickers, which has severely limited the Colombian president’s ability to travel abroad.
While in DC, Petro is expected to meet with US congressmen from the Democratic and Republican parties, and with Albert Ramdin, the Secretary General of the Organization of American States.
The president will additionally speak at Georgetown University, before the Colombian embassy and at the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library.
Related posts:
