Gustavo Petro thought this past week that at any moment an assault force could land on the roof of the Casa de Nariño, the Colombian presidential residence, and burst into his office. He doesn’t have a bunker to run to, as Nicolás Maduro tried to do a week ago before he was captured and placed on a helicopter bound for the United States. The 65-year-old Colombian president felt threatened by Donald Trump’s insinuations that something similar could happen to him. The U.S. president has variously called Petro a drug addict, a thug, a drug trafficker, and a front man for Maduro. He has added him to the Clinton List — a red list of individuals and companies linked by Washington to drug trafficking — and revoked his visa. Petro, meanwhile, says he clung to “the people” as a shield against the army with the greatest firepower in history, and to Simón Bolívar’s sword, kept as a relic close to him.
A phone call changed everything. Petro and Trump spoke for an hour on Wednesday, and at the end of it, they expressed satisfaction with the conversation and parted amicably. It was in this same spirit that Petro showed up for the interview with EL PAÍS late Thursday afternoon, in one of the rooms at the Nariño Palace. An assistant adjusted his hair and another one brought him eye drops.
His anti-imperialist rhetoric has been toned down. He even goes so far as to say that his positions on the fight against drug trafficking or the need for a transition in Venezuela culminating in elections are not so far removed from Trump’s. Petro even finds some similarities between them. “He does what he thinks, just like me. He’s also pragmatic, though more so than me. I like to talk,” he jokes. Petro doesn’t want any more conflict with Trump, for now.
He doesn’t have much time left as president, only eight months. The international scenario, in which he feels more comfortable, distracts him from domestic problems. His presidency has also been marked by several corruption cases involving two of his former ministers, who are currently in prison, and violence continues unabated despite his attempts to bring peace to the country. At Christmas, he declared an economic emergency to cover a 16.3 trillion peso (approximately US$4.35 billion) shortfall in the 2026 budget, an exceptional decision that reflects the fragility of the political and economic climate five months before the elections.
Question. Were you truly afraid of suffering the same fate as Maduro?
Answer. Undoubtedly. Nicolás Maduro or any president in the world can be removed if he does not align with certain interests.
Q. Did you reinforce your security in any way?
A. There isn’t even any air defense here. It was never purchased because the fighting is internal. The guerrillas don’t have F-16 fighter jets, and the army doesn’t have that type of defense.
Q. Did your intelligence services warn you of any real danger?
A. It hasn’t been necessary. Trump has been saying it for months. But what we use here is popular defense, and that’s why I called for popular resistance on Wednesday [in rallies that filled squares throughout Colombia].
Q. Has the threat diminished?
A. I think it was frozen, but I could be wrong. We didn’t know what military action was being planned, only that one was underway.
Q. How do you know?
A. Trump told me on the call that he was thinking about doing bad things in Colombia. The message was that they were already preparing something, planning it, a military operation.
Q. How was that conversation?
A. The conversation consisted of me being able to express my opinion. He had only received information from the opposition via the state of Florida—where the most radical Republican wing is located. That opposition lies about our fight against drug trafficking. You read what [former Colombian president] Álvaro Uribe says, and he practically comes across as defending the attacks against us.
Q. What impression did Trump make on you as a person?
A. He does what he thinks, just like me. He’s also pragmatic, though more so than I am. I like to talk. His views on many issues are very different from mine. But for example, on drug trafficking, we have no differences. He told me something I liked: ‘I know that many lies have been invented about you, just as they have been about me.’
Q. You have also spoken with Delcy Rodríguez, the new president of Venezuela in Maduro’s absence. What is your room for maneuver, with Trump breathing down your neck and saying he is “in charge” of Venezuela?
A. I’m a friend of hers. She’s under pressure from both within and without. She’s been accused of being a traitor. She sees the need to strengthen Latin American unity, but her central task should be uniting the people of Venezuela. If the people are divided, there will be colonization. If they unite and seek a political solution to the obvious problem, they can move forward.
Q. Has she asked you for help? Your [Interior] Minister, Armando Benedetti, has said that when you offered to mediate, Trump changed the subject.
A. Benedetti was a witness, but I don’t know if he heard Trump’s words. It didn’t seem that way to me. The conversation basically consisted of me presenting my arguments for 40 minutes, and him, for 15, talking about how we communicate. All this is happening because we don’t communicate.
Q. Are you now afraid that Diosdado Cabello may be a destabilizing element within the government itself?
A. All the political forces that exist in Venezuela today must exist. Eliminating some through violent means will bring more violence.
Q. Among those forces is María Corina Machado, the leader of the opposition.
A. She needs to change her rhetoric. Everything she’s done lately is wrong, including winning the Nobel Prize over Trump.
Q. Let’s say you’re not a big supporter of hers, but how do you reconcile yourself to the idea that it won’t be her or Edmundo González governing when they’re the ones who won the elections?
A. I don’t consider them to have been free elections.
Q. Something similar to what U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said…
A. The United States’ position regarding Venezuela is not so far removed from mine. The idea of a transition to free elections and a shared government has been raised by others, such as Rubio, and it coincides with my proposal. But it cannot be imposed from the outside; it must emerge from Venezuelan dialogue. The role of the United States should be to facilitate that dialogue, together with Latin America. Before the elections in Venezuela, I proposed a shared government, inspired by the experience of the National Front in Colombia. In Venezuela, it could be applied briefly to create conditions for truly free elections. I also proposed a plebiscite, but it was not accepted by the United States or by Maduro. Now it could be revisited.
Q. This is far from what actually happened.
A. I was a de facto mediator, along with Mexico, Norway, and other countries. Before the elections, we sought an agreement to hold free elections. I spoke with [former U.S. president Joe] Biden and with Maduro about that option. The last meeting with European governments, the United States, several Latin American governments, and our own took place in Bogotá. The idea was to end the blockade and cease the repression, but Maduro said, “How can there be free elections if they’ve put a price on my head?” The United States agreed, but the repression wasn’t dismantled, there was no amnesty, the blockade wasn’t lifted, and everything failed.
Q. Did Maduro’s refusal to step down after the fraud accusations lead to everything that has happened since?
A. I didn’t recognize those elections. Neither did Brazil nor Mexico. And after that, I couldn’t go to Venezuela. And with Trump, even less so; any possibility of mediation is over. The Trump administration wanted to do it on its own.
Q. What is that way?
A. The central issue is that there’s a clash of visions: U.S. law allows them to enter another country if there’s criminal activity like drug trafficking, but international law doesn’t. If this becomes widespread, it could lead to a world war. The issue isn’t Venezuela, the issue is China: the United States fears competition from China and is seeking energy to compete commercially, but that will lead to war.
Q. When is Delcy Rodríguez coming to Bogotá?
A. She’s asked me for two weeks. She needs to see what’s happening in her own country and not make a mistake.
Q. And when are you going to the White House?
A. First, the foreign ministers will go to Washington to finalize the date.
Q. Regardless of the call with Trump, there have been concessions and negotiations on security issues, such as bombings and extraditions. Has Trump asked you to revoke the political status of the criminal groups that are now negotiating peace?
A. Actually, I don’t recognize that status for them because they’re groups driven by greed. There is something Trump can help with, and that’s that the prosecution should be handling the negotiations, but they haven’t wanted to out of fear. But the United States negotiates with criminal groups all the time. The United States negotiates with the drug lords we extradite.
Q. Do you think Iván Cepeda, the left-wing candidate for this year’s presidential elections, has enough strength to succeed you?
A. I can’t get involved in politics. It’s forbidden.
Q. What kind of former president will you be? Will you be actively involved in politics like Álvaro Uribe?
A. I’m not a tiresome old man. I’m not as old as him. I prefer to dedicate myself to reading and writing books. Everything has gone wrong for Uribe.
Q. You have said that you have felt alone and misunderstood as president. Now that the twilight of your presidency is beginning...
A. What twilight? The fact that so many people are coming out to the squares in so little time left shows strength. I feel very pleased by the support of the people.
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