Outcome of meeting uncertain as ‘erratic, temperamental’ presidents could be either ‘confrontational’ or amicable
One month ago, a White House meeting between Donald Trump and his Colombian counterpart, Gustavo Petro, would have been unthinkable.
The US raid on Caracas to capture the Venezuelan leader, Nicolás Maduro, brought already heated relations between them to a boil, with Trump warning the leftist Colombian leader “could be next”, claiming Petro was a “sick man who likes making cocaine and selling it to the United States”.
Petro, a former guerrilla who demobilised in the 1990s, responded defiantly: “I swore not to touch a weapon again … but for the homeland I will.”
Then, a 7 January phone call, frantically coordinated by diplomats in both countries, put the brakes on the fiery tit-for-tat and ended with Trump’s invitation to Tuesday’s meeting in the Oval Office.
