Global Courant 2023-04-17 00:33:40
The trip this Sunday of Colombian President Gustavo Petro to the United States and his first bilateral meeting with Joe Biden on Thursday paint an idyllic scenario of close relations between two countries that have notorious disagreements but know that they need each other.
“The United States needs Colombia and Colombia needs the United States,” summarizes Mauricio Jaramillo, a professor at the Faculty of International, Political and Urban Studies at the Universidad del Rosario, to EFE.
The arrival of Petro has reflected the “ideological harmony” of both governments, which have a common “environmental sensitivity” and willingness to rethink policies such as drug policies, as well as “affinities in terms of human rights and even in terms of peace.”
Former Colombian President Iván Duque boasted that Colombia was the first partner of the United States in the region, and he was the first Latin American leader to meet with Biden after the departure of Donald Trump, although it took him more than a year and several visits to the country. to be received at the White House.
On June 10, 2022, Joe Biden, together with the then president of Colombia Iván Duque (c) and the president of Panama, Laurentino Cortizo. Photo EFE
“battered” relationships
Trump himself, for whom Uribismo, Duque’s political current, had advocated in the campaign, “disparaged” the former president, according to Jaramillo, because he considered him lacking leadership capacity.
“Duque, by action or omission, mistreated the relationship with the United States,” Jaramillo alleges, while Petro has been “more intelligent” since since he took office last August he has sought a rapprochement that next Thursday will materialize with the meeting with Biden in the Oval Office.
However, the White House opened its doors to the Chilean Gabriel Boric on June 9, 2022, barely three months after taking office, and Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva did not need more than a month and a half to make the meeting effective. after returning to the Brazilian Presidency.
That is why some consider that the Petro meeting is late and that it has not been so easy to achieve, despite the hard work of the Colombian ambassador in Washington, Luis Gilberto Murillo, and the apparent good tone between the two governments.
drug controversy
In US offices, there are those who are beginning to get tired of Petro’s “punishing” speech against the US and his criticism of the handling of drug policy in Latin America, according to analysts consulted by EFE.
“The war on drugs has failed. The fight against the climate crisis has failed,” Petro announced during his first speech at the last UN General Assembly and pointed to a place: “The war on drugs has lasted 40 years, If we don’t correct course and this continues for another 40 years, the United States will see 2,800,000 young people die of fentanyl overdoses.”
According to the professor at the University of Rosario, Petro is the first president in office who dared to verbalize it like this and he repeated it to the US Secretary of State, Anthony Blinken, when he came to Colombia and reconsidered the extradition policy, for example, something that is not very popular in the US.
“The war on drugs has failed. The fight against the climate crisis has failed,” Petro told the UN. Photo Reuters
“Petro has obligations and the United States knows it, it knows that they elected him for a change,” says Jaramillo, who considers that in this case Colombia is tightening the rope because it knows that the United States has “strong pressure to change the focus” on drugs, although I do not always agree with everything that is proposed.
“The United States knows that the rope can be tightened but it cannot be broken and in Casa de Nariño (Colombian presidential headquarters) they think the same,” a source familiar with the relations told EFE.
Bridge to Venezuela
In this symbiosis, Petro, for example, will arrive in Washington seeking “more support”, especially funds for certain reforms, which can be seen in his recent declarations that there is no money to implement the FARC peace agreement.
And the US, in addition to seeing Colombia as an aid for the reception of Venezuelans – it is the country with the largest number – that what they see as a “wave” decreases, it also needs it to relaunch its own relations with Venezuela.
After verifying that the sanctions against the government of Nicolás Maduro have not served much, Jaramillo points out, “the United States is interested in a democratic transition.”
And there “Petro wants to be a double bridge”, because he gets along well with both the government and the opposition, but also wants to position himself as the regional leader he wants to be to connect Venezuela and the United States.
However, and despite his announcement of an “international conference for Venezuelan dialogue” in Colombia, which will be on April 25 and at which only foreign ministers are expected at the moment, it is not expected that the bilateral declaration after the meeting with Biden going to transcend too much about Venezuela.
In any case, although this good harmony between the Colombian and US governments is what shines, close sources assure that on Thursday in the Oval Office the conversation could be tense and not so jovial.
EFE Agency
PB
