Medellin, Colombia – Colombian President Gustavo Petro met with US President Donald Trump at the White House on February 4, 2026 in what has become one of the most anticipated diplomatic encounters of the year.
The meeting comes nearly five months after the United States decertified Colombia as a reliable partner in anti-drug efforts, which ultimately triggered a period of visa cancellations, threats of sanctions and sharp public recriminations between the two leaders.
Read more: Trump invites Colombian Petro to White House amid pandemic
But the tone after the nearly two-hour meeting was noticeably different. The two leaders described the meeting as respectful and constructive. According to Petro, both men agreed that priority should be given to dismantling major human trafficking networks and pursuing high-level kingpins. This was language that suggested new possibilities for cooperation.
But beyond conciliatory rhetoric, no joint statement or specific policy commitments have emerged, raising questions about whether the meeting represents a substantive change in the U.S.-Colombia counter-drug strategy.
A practical ceasefire, not a policy breakthrough
For Ana María Rueda, she is the Drug Policy Coordinator. Ideas for the Peace Foundation As an NGO and former director of drug policy at the Colombian Ministry of Justice, the meeting appears to be more of a pragmatic truce than a strategic turning point. The United States relies on Colombia as its key counternarcotics partner in the region, and Colombia also relies heavily on U.S. cooperation, trade, and security assistance.
After months of increasing friction, stabilizing relations was in both parties’ interests. But restoring diplomatic stability is different from redesigning policy.
“There is no explicit or publicly agreed upon agreement, at least at this point,” Rueda said. Latin America Report.
He continued, “Either closed, private discussions took place but were not made public, or this meeting may have primarily served as a diplomatic reset.”
In that sense, this meeting may have served as a channel for easing immediate tensions without fundamentally changing the structural direction of Colombia’s counter-narcotics efforts.
Security vs. Development: What Fuels Political Tensions
If this meeting was meant to reset strained relations, the more difficult question is what destabilized them in the first place.
Some analysts have framed the dispute between Washington and Bogota as part of a broader debate over how to resolve the issue of coca cultivation. For decades, U.S. anti-drug policies have prioritized eradication, prohibition, and reducing drug demand.
But President Gustavo Petro placed greater emphasis on rural development and voluntary crop substitution programs designed to change the structural conditions that sustain coca production.
Therefore, from an outside perspective, the decision to decertify may be read as evidence of ideological conflict. Nonetheless, Rueda rejected this characterization.
“This is not a question of replacement,” she explained. “Indeed, broadly speaking, Americans agree with the replacement, have traditionally supported it, and believe that the Colombian government should continue to implement it along with other control measures.”
As she explains, the conflict lies not in theory but in practice. Forced extermination declined sharply at the start of Petro’s term, while replacement programs progressed more slowly than expected. Meanwhile, coca cultivation remains near record highs.
“If the strategy is not yet producing results, that is, if eradication efforts stall and coca cultivation continues to increase, there is little ground to stand on,” Rueda said.
From this perspective, Washington’s decertification appears not to be an outright rejection of Colombia’s current approach but rather an expression of frustration with the speed and measurability of results.
number argument
Given that uncertainty surrounding the effectiveness of implementation has created political vulnerability, numbers have become Petro’s main line of defense in its meeting with Trump.
The most recent annual census by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), typically a focal point of international reporting and certification discussions, found levels of coca cultivation to be historically high.
But Petro’s focus was noticeably different. Rather than focusing on the absolute number of hectares, he pointed to Colombia’s more frequent monitoring system. ratio Coca cultivation has decreased. In this frame, the key signal is not the overall size of the crop but the control of crop expansion.
Read more: Petro proposed suspending UN cocaine monitoring in Colombia, citing inaccuracies.
But for Rueda, this distinction means little.
“That kind of pun serves no meaningful purpose in a political context,” she explained. “Yes, growth has slowed, but does this have any implications for Trump? No. The United States needs to see cultivation numbers fall.”
The debate then is about what constitutes relevant progress. For Petro, slow growth means the curve is flattening and his strategy is gaining traction. According to Rueda (and the view of U.S. officials evaluating certification), only a noticeable reduction in total hectares has political significance. That’s because even as expansion rates decline from double digits to low single digits, the baseline remains at historically high levels.
She suggests that the difference between narrative stabilization and actual decline helps explain why numbers had limited persuasive power in shaping assessments of Washington.
What does real change look like?
According to Rueda, seizures of illegal drugs are becoming more frequent and the Colombian government has also stepped up action against human trafficking networks.
“The president actually confiscated a lot of things, made extraditions, and did what he said he would do at the higher links in the chain,” she acknowledged. However, there is a sharp difference between executive optics and structural change.
The problem is that seizures and extradition alone do not automatically lead to a sustained decline in coca cultivation, investigators noted. Without effective eradication measures coupled with alternative programs that could cause significant territorial reductions, the baseline will not fall.
“I would say that the stabilization observed in certain regions may be better explained by temporary market pressures, such as the sharp decline in coca leaf prices in 2022 and 2023, rather than as a result of the Petro’s structural policies.”
In Rueda’s view, the real change that could change Washington’s assessment after the White House meeting would involve more than readjusting the growth narrative. This will likely be accompanied by a tangible increase in forced extermination, operationalization of drone-based fumigation, and continued extraditions signaling alignment with U.S. enforcement priorities.
These expectations reflect the traditional framework that has shaped bilateral cooperation since World War II. Plan Colombia– A joint U.S.-Colombian strategy developed in the late 1990s to achieve peace and development in Latin American countries through military action against drug trafficking and armed groups.
Petro has sought to redefine that model around rural development and long-term change, but Rueda suggests that U.S. certification policy remains anchored in measurable control indicators. Above all, coca hectare rates are plummeting.
Whether such a transition is politically and practically feasible is another question. “Petro has five months left in office. At this point, whatever he does is unlikely to have any measurable impact,” Rueda said.
Large-scale eradication campaigns will generate rural resistance and require significant operational strengthening. Replacement programs, by design, will take years to put together. So even if a change in strategy is decided tomorrow, it will not take effect until his term ends.
In that sense, the meeting between Petro and Trump may have eased diplomatic pressure and stabilized the tone. However, given that coca cultivation is not significantly declining, this is unlikely to yet signal a fundamental change in the trajectory of U.S.-Colombian anti-drug efforts.
Featured Image: The White House via X.
