Name: Colombian President Petro defends national security amid U.S. threats
Uploaded: 2026-01-08T12:32:31.908Z
Duration: 1 min 57 s
Description: U.S. President Donald Trump said he had invited Colombian President Gustavo Petro to the White House following what was described as a cordial phone conversation. Petro, who had strongly condemned the US operation targeting Nicolás Maduro, later appeared at a rally in Bogotá framed around defending national sovereignty in the face of Trump’s threats.

U.S. President Donald Trump said he had invited Colombian President Gustavo Petro to the White House following what was described as a cordial phone conversation. Petro, who had strongly condemned the US operation targeting Nicolás Maduro, later appeared at a rally in Bogotá framed around defending national sovereignty in the face of Trump’s threats.

Bogotá

Colombian President Gustavo Petro called for demonstrations in Bolívar Square, Bogotá, in response to U.S. President Donald Trump's threat of military intervention. During the protest, Petro announced he had spoken with Trump by phone and read a message from Trump inviting him to the White House, which was met with applause.

Relations between the two countries have deteriorated following a U.S. operation in Venezuela and accusations by Trump labeling Petro as an international drug dealer. Petro attributed these accusations to influence from Colombia's extreme right and noted that Colombia was recently added to a U.S. list of nations not cooperating in the drug war for the first time in three decades.

Colombian President Petro defends national security amid U.S. threats

In Bolívar Square, in the heart of Bogotá, protesters were calling for respect for Colombian sovereignty. The country's president, Gustavo Petro, himself called for the demonstration, following his U.S. counterpart Donald Trump threatening military intervention in the country. Arriving late to the protest, Petro announced that he had just been on the phone with Trump. Today we spoke on the phone for the first time since he became president. If we don't have dialogue, then there is war. Moments later, he discovered and read live a message Trump posted on Truth Social, inviting him to the White House. I appreciated his call and his tone, and I look forward to meeting him soon. The crowd responded with resounding applause. After months of trading barbs on social media, the tone between the two leaders reached a fever pitch after the U.S. operation that abducted Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, which Petro decried as illegal. Trump responded by telling him to watch his back and called him an international drug dealer. Explaining the accusations, the Colombian head of state said that the extreme right in his country had the U.S. president's ear. Trump isn't stupid. They deceived him. That's why he came out saying something that would sound absurd to any citizen who hears it, that Petro is the head of drug trafficking, when they've tried to assassinate me four times. Colombia has long been among America's staunchest allies in Latin America and a pillar of Washington's counter-narcotic strategy abroad. But relations have deteriorated in recent months, with Petro being a vocal critic of Trump's foreign policies. In September, the U.S. added Colombia to a list of nations that are failing to cooperate in the drug war for the first time in 30 years.

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