WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump is set to welcome Colombian President Gustavo Petro to the White House on Tuesday for talks only weeks after threatening military action against the South American country and accusing the leader of pumping cocaine into the United States.
U.S. administration officials say the meeting will focus on regional security cooperation and counternarcotics efforts. And Trump on Monday suggested that Petro — who has continued to criticize Trump and the U.S. operation to capture Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro — seems more willing to work with his administration to stem the flow of illegal drugs from Colombia.
“Somehow after the Venezuelan raid, he became very nice,” Trump told reporters. “He changed his attitude very much.”
Yet, bad blood between the leaders overshadows the sit-down, even as Trump sought to downplay any friction on the eve of the visit.
The conservative Trump and leftist Petro are ideologically far apart, but both leaders share a tendency for verbal bombast and unpredictability. That sets the stage for a White House visit with an anything-could-happen vibe.
In recent days, Petro has continued poking at the U.S. president, calling Trump an “accomplice to genocide” in the Gaza Strip, while asserting that the capture of Maduro was a kidnapping.
And ahead of his departure for Washington, Petro called on Colombians to take to the streets of Bogotá during the White House meeting.
Historically, Colombia has been a U.S. ally. For the past 30 years, the U.S. has worked closely with Colombia, the world’s largest producer of cocaine, to arrest drug traffickers, fend off rebel groups and boost economic development in rural areas.
But relations between the leaders have been strained by Trump’s massing U.S. forces in the region for unprecedented deadly military strikes targeting suspected drug smuggling boats in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific. At least 126 people have been killed in 36 known strikes.
In October, the Trump administration announced it was imposing sanctions on Petro, his family and a member of his government over accusations of involvement in the global drug trade.
The Treasury Department leveled the penalties against Petro; his wife, Veronica del Socorro Alcocer Garcia; his son, Nicolas Fernando Petro Burgos; and Colombian Interior Minister Armando Alberto Benedetti.
The sanctions, which had to be waived to allow Petro to travel to Washington this week, came after the U.S. administration in September announced it was adding Colombia to a list of nations failing to cooperate in the drug war for the first time in three decades.
Then came the audacious military operation last month to capture Maduro and his wife to face federal drug conspiracy charges, a move that Petro has forcefully denounced. Following Maduro’s ouster, Trump put Colombia on notice, and ominously warned Petro he could be next.
Colombia is “run by a sick man who likes making cocaine and selling it to the United States,” Trump said of Petro last month. “And he’s not gonna be doing it very long, let me tell you.”
But a few days later, tensions eased somewhat after a call between the leaders. Trump said Petro in their hourlong conversation explained “the drug situation and other disagreements.” And Trump extended an invitation to Petro for the White House visit.
Trump on a couple of occasions has used the typically scripted leaders' meetings to deliver stern rebukes to counterparts in front of the press.
Trump and Vice President JD Vance lashed out at Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in February for showing insufficient gratitude for U.S. support of Ukraine. Trump also used a White House meeting in May to forcefully confront South African President Cyril Ramaphosa,accusing the country, with reporters present, of failing to address Trump’s baseless claim of the systematic killing of white farmers.
It was not clear that the meeting between Trump and Petro would include a portion in front of cameras.
President Donald Trump speaks in the Oval Office of the White House, Monday, Feb. 2, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
FILE - Colombian President Gustavo Petro arrives at the presidential palace in Panama City, Jan. 28, 2026. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix, File)
LA PAZ, Bolivia (AP) — The almost monthlong disappearance from public view of Bolivia’s towering socialist icon, ex-leader Evo Morales, shortly after the Jan. 3 U.S. seizure of former Venezuelan president and his close ally Nicolás Maduro, is alarming his supporters, roiling his enemies and galvanizing the internet.
On Monday, he missed a ceremony that he typically attends welcoming students back from summer break. On Sunday, Morales was a no-show for the fourth straight weekly broadcast of his political radio show, which he has hosted without interruption for years.
Since early January, he has skipped scheduled meetings with members of his coca-leaf growing union in Bolivia’s remote Chapare region and his daily stream of social media content has all but dried up.
Although Morales has spent the past year evading an arrest warrant on charges of human trafficking, his fugitive status hasn't stopped the firebrand union leader from speaking at rallies, receiving supporters, giving interviews, posting on X — or even running an unconventional presidential campaign last year — all from his political stronghold in the Chapare.
Morales rejects the statutory rape allegations as politically motivated.
The question of Morales’ whereabouts has set off furious speculation as the Trump administration imposes its political will in South America through sanctions, punitive tariffs, electoral endorsements, financial bailouts and military action.
Morales' close associates have privately declined to provide an explanation for his absences while publicly telling supporters that the former president has been recovering from dengue fever, a mosquito-borne viral illness with symptoms that typically last no longer than a week.
“We have asked our brother Evo Morales to rest completely,” said Dieter Mendoza, vice president of an body of farmers known as the Six Federations that runs the coca-leaf trade in the tropics, declining to elaborate.
For Morales' rivals, the mystery has stirred resentful memories of 2019, when he resigned under pressure from the military after his disputed bid for an unconstitutional third term provoked mass protests. Morales fled to Mexico then took refuge in Argentina, only to return home when Luis Arce, his former finance minister, took the presidency in 2020.
“Evo Morales is in Mexico,” declared right-wing lawmaker Edgar Zegarra, offering no evidence but demanding that the government prove otherwise. “He has not appeared, not even at political events, and they don’t know how to justify it.”
Security officials within Bolivia's first conservative government following almost 20 years of dominance by Morales’ Movement Toward Socialism, or MAS, party, have been cryptic.
“The former president has not left Bolivia,” said Police Commander Gen. General Mirko Sokol, “at least not through any official channels.”
WhatsApp messages and calls to Morales went unanswered Monday.
Bolivia's election of centrist President Rodrigo Paz last October came as part of a wider ideological swing across Latin America, where U.S. President Donald Trump has become increasingly entangled in regional politics.
In the last two years, right-wing would-be saviors have come to power in countries wracked by economic crisis like Argentina and consumed by fears of violent crime like Chile. Costa Rica's election of a right-wing populist Monday reinforced the trend.
Like Maduro and his mentor and predecessor, the late Hugo Chávez, Morales was openly hostile to the United States and cozied up to its political foes during his 14 years as Bolivia's first Indigenous president from 2006 to 2019.
In 2008, Morales expelled the U.S. ambassador and counternarcotics officials for allegedly conspiring against his government. Russia poured money into Bolivia’s energy and lithium mining sectors. Chinese companies won contracts to build highways and dams. Iran offered the country its drone technology.
Now Paz is trying to reverse the political direction. His government has scrapped visa requirements for American tourists, held talks with U.S. officials on securing loans to rescue Bolivia's economy and paved the way for the return of the Drug Enforcement Agency to Bolivia, a regional cocaine-trafficking hub.
The prospect of the DEA’s reappearance has rattled the Bolivian tropics still scarred from an aggressive U.S.-backed war on drugs in the late 1990s that forced coca farmers to eradicate their crops. The plant is the raw material of cocaine but it also holds deep cultural and spiritual significance in the country.
Coca farmers in the Chapare say they haven't seen Morales since Jan. 8, as panic about a rare overflight by a Super Puma helicopter gripped the jungle region. Deputy Social Defense Minister, Ernesto Justiniano, later explained it was a data collection mission in coordination with foreign agencies, including the DEA, but had nothing to do with Morales.
“State surveillance should not be a threat to anyone," he said.
Right-wing contenders in last year's presidential election campaign — including ex-President Jorge Quiroga, who ultimately lost the runoff to the more moderate Paz — vowed that if elected, they'd yank Morales from his hideout in the Chapare and lock him up.
Now, they're seizing on unverified rumors of Morales' escape to ratchet up the pressure on Paz.
“He’s playing hide-and-seek, he’s making a mockery of the state,” Quiroga said of Morales. “The country cannot speak of legal security when an arrest warrant is not executed.”
Bolivia's judiciary, with its history of tacking where political winds blow, has already freed right-wing opposition figures and pursued cases against former officials, detaining former President Arce just weeks after Paz's inauguration.
But unlike Arce, Morales retains a strong, albeit small, base of support. Loyalists protecting him from arrest have vowed to resist with guerrilla tactics if security forces invade the Chapare.
Morales could appear at any time and quash the speculation about his status.
But for now his inner circle appears content to leave things a mystery.
“Our brother president is doing very well,” said Leonardo Loza, a former senator and close friend of Morales. “He is in a corner of our greater homeland.”
DeBre reported from Buenos Aires, Argentina.
FILE - Bolivia's former President Evo Morales chews coca in Lauca N, Chapare region, Bolivia, Nov. 3, 2024, amid an ongoing political conflict with the government of President Luis Arce. (AP Photo/Juan Karita, File)
