Petro and Biden talk about Venezuela, environment and peace

First modification: 04/21/2023 – 10:50

The meeting began with a relaxed tone. Between laughs, both leaders joked about their ages. “They say that being 63 in this generation is like being 40 in the old one,” said Colombian President Gustavo Petro. His US counterpart, Joe Biden, responded in the affirmative.

Meeting at the White House, the agenda had topics such as democracy, freedom and peace. In addition, Petro pointed to the environment as one of the points in common between both nations. After the meeting, the Colombian president assured that they had discussed his proposal to exchange public debt for climate efforts.

“Today humanity, the planet, demands a deep economic transformation to preserve life. We have to move from fossil capital, from fossil greed, from that accumulation that grows like a hurricane,” said the leftist.

Cooperation for the environment was one of the main concerns shared between both leaders, who assured that they will do more to cooperate on the matter.

“As we begin the next cycle of our partnership, I think we can do even more” to deepen and develop cooperation, Biden told Petro.

The Colombian leader urged moving towards a carbon-free economy, one of his great campaign promises. The country’s main exports are oil and coal.

Venezuela, at the center of the meeting

The Colombian president has called on multiple occasions for sanctions against Venezuelan government companies and officials to be lifted and for talks on democratic reforms to be resumed in the Latin American country. A demand that, according to the United States, can only be met if free elections are held in that country.

“A strategy was put on the table that is to hold elections first and then lift sanctions. Or gradually, to the extent that an electoral agenda is fulfilled, those sanctions are also lifted,” Petro said in statements to the press.

The leader of the White House stated that both countries seek a “united, egalitarian, democratic and economically prosperous” Western Hemisphere. And he stated that Colombia is one of the “keys” to the region.

In the South American country there are around two million Venezuelan migrants, who have been granted legal status and a 10-year right to stay.

For his part, Petro assured that: “We are going down the same river, a river that leads us to an ever greater democracy and ever greater freedom.” And he added: “We have a common agenda and a lot of work to do.”

The war on drugs and peace

“I really want to thank you for your frank and strong commitment to peace and human rights,” Biden said.

Some statements in which he made reference to Petro’s efforts to put an end to six decades of armed conflict with a policy called ‘Total Peace’, with which he seeks to negotiate with the leftist ELN guerrillas, the FARC dissidents and other criminal groups.

Petro has repeatedly said that the US-led war on drugs has failed and has called for a new international approach to deal with this problem that affects several Latin American nations, including not only Colombia, but also Peru and Mexico.

The Petro Administration has tried to find the heads of high-ranking drug traffickers instead of eradicating illicit coca crops.

“It is one thing to fumigate a forest and some human beings who are economically weak; and another thing is to persecute the drug-trafficking business, something that is done based on intelligence work, their assets and money are persecuted,” Petro stressed.

To fight drug trafficking, Petro told reporters: “I asked for a little more help, we need more boats, more drones.”

The Biden government says it recognizes that a new approach must be developed to deal with the problem of drug trafficking, although it has expressed concern about the increase in coca crops in Colombia.

After the meeting ended, the Colombian president signed the White House guest book where he wrote: “May our struggles achieve peace, full life, a deeper and more multicolored democracy (and) social justice for the weakest.”

With Reuters and EFE