On 3 February 2026, there was a meeting between President Gustavo Petro and President Donald Trump in the White House.

Just one month before the Trump administration had removed former Venezuelan President, Nicolás Maduro and his family from Venezuela. Trump in a press interview, following the action involving the former Venezuelan President, stated that Colombian President Petro could face a similar action.

The meeting in the Oval Office followed a range of very public disagreements on policy, that cause considerable tensions, and finally sanctions imposed on President Petro by President Trump and decertification of Colombia. The sanctions against Petro were lifted for the meeting to take place.  

In a complete about turn by both presidents, they left the meeting on 3 February stating very positive things about each other and saying that the encounter had been constructive.

Following this meeting President Petro outlined topic’s covered in their discussions, these included:

• the economic recovery of Venezuela and the possibility of exporting Venezuelan gas via Colombia.
• Enhanced cooperation in relation to transnational organised crime and the drugs trade, pointing out that the majority “capos”(Kingpins) behind the drugs trade were not Colombian and President Petro asked President Trump to help with capturing these Kingpins. According to Petro the top brass of drug trafficking live in Dubai, Madrid, Miami etc. 
• Petro gave Trump a list of Colombia’s main drug traffickers with the aim of receiving support from US intelligence services to arrest them. The list included Jobanis de Jesús Ávila Villadiego (alias Chiquito Malo) of the EGC and Néstor Gregorio Vera Fernández (alias Iván Mordisco) leader of the EMC largest FARC dissident groups, and Gustavo Aníbal Giraldo (Alias Pablito), third in command of the ELN guerrilla group on the border with Venezuela.

Trump’s agenda had repercussions as seen on 4 February 2026, when the Clan del Golfo/Ejército Gaitanista de Colombia (EGC) temporarily suspended the Peace Talks with the Colombian Government. The leaders of the Clan del Golfo considered that the handing over of their names and discussion on cooperation to apprehend the kingpins of drug trafficking to be an ‘attack’ on their ‘good faith’. One of the key agreements that all illegal armed groups seek to establish with the Colombian Governemnt as part of a peace deal is no extradition for drugs trafficking to the USA. The suspension of the Peace Talks lasted two weeks, before the EGC re-engaged.

Petro also raised with Trump the ongoing dispute with Ecuadorian President Daniel Noboa, in relation to Colombia’s failure to curb illegal mining and cocaine trafficking, asking Trump to act as a mediator and discussed the idea of a tri-lateral counternarcotics effort.

However, as Petro will leave office in August 2026 it will be incumbent on his successor to continue this dialogue with Trump, if these ideas are to be actioned over the long term.