Blinken Meets With Colombia’s New Leftist Leader Amid Policy Splits

BOGOTÁ — Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken met on Monday with Colombia’s newly elected president, Gustavo Petro, a leftist chief whose positions on Cuba, the drug warfare and Venezuela’s anti-American management all break from these of the Biden administration, testing the 2 international locations’ longtime shut relationship.

Mr. Blinken arrived in Bogotá at the beginning of a five-day journey by means of South America, the place he’ll meet with a trio of leaders elected in latest months on left-wing populist platforms. The journey comes a day after Brazil’s right-wing president, Jair Bolsonaro, positioned second behind his leftist challenger, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, in a first-round presidential vote that units up a runoff election on Oct. 30.

America has traditionally shut ties with Colombia, having supported its lengthy army marketing campaign in opposition to drug cartels and, extra lately, having cooperated with Mr. Petro’s right-wing predecessor, Iván Duque, to isolate the populist Venezuelan strongman Nicolás Maduro.

However the June election of Mr. Petro to succeed Mr. Duque is inserting stress on that relationship.

In a joint information convention with Mr. Petro at Bogotá’s grand presidential palace, Mr. Blinken downplayed any variations. “We’ve been listening to one another, and we’re studying from each other,” he stated.

Mr. Petro, a former member of an city guerrilla group and a passionate environmentalist, has stated that “the warfare on medicine has failed” in his nation, which is the world’s high cocaine producer. He has proposed ending the compelled eradication of coca and backs laws that would decriminalize and regulate cocaine gross sales.

Mr. Petro has stated that America’s drug drawback is now overwhelmingly dominated by artificial medicine like methamphetamine, not cocaine from Colombia, and that extra Colombians die from drug violence than Individuals do of cocaine overdoses. However the Biden administration publicly opposes his method.

Standing alongside Mr. Blinken, Mr. Petro acknowledged on the joint information convention that “we view the warfare on medicine in a different way.”

Venezuela is one other level of friction. Whereas having branded Mr. Maduro a “dictator,” Mr. Petro has moved shortly to revive his nation’s ties with neighboring Venezuela, saying the 2 populations ought to coexist in concord.

President Biden has left in place the punishing sanctions imposed in opposition to the Maduro authorities by the Trump administration. Like President Donald J. Trump, Mr. Biden has not acknowledged Mr. Maduro because the nation’s chief and has no formal diplomatic relations with Caracas, though on Saturday america carried out a prisoner alternate with Mr. Maduro’s authorities that freed a number of long-held Individuals from the nation.

Mr. Blinken thanked Colombia for internet hosting huge numbers of Venezuelan migrants, 1.7 million of whom Colombia granted non permanent authorized standing final yr.

Mr. Blinken stated that america continued to assist a dialogue between Mr. Maduro’s authorities and the opposition chief Juan Guaidó, whom america has acknowledged because the nation’s legit chief.

“That’s essentially what is important for Venezuelans to not really feel the duty to depart the nation that’s theirs, in addition to for Venezuelans to return,” Mr. Blinken stated, referring to the necessity for dialogue.

Variations additionally emerged between Mr. Blinken and his host as regards to Cuba. Requested whether or not the Biden administration would possibly reverse a Trump administration designation of Cuba as an official state sponsor of terrorism, Mr. Blinken was noncommittal, citing a proper course of for reversing such designations.

Mr. Petro declared the designation “an injustice,” saying that it punished Cuba for internet hosting — with what he known as the approval of a earlier Colombian authorities and the Obama administration — peace talks with former rebels whom the Trump administration branded terrorists.

Mr. Petro stated the designation “must be corrected.”

The Biden administration is working with Mr. Petro to make sure the continued implementation of a 2016 peace settlement that ended a long time of preventing between Colombia’s authorities and guerrillas from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC.

After his assembly with Mr. Petro, Mr. Blinken visited the Fragmentos Museum, devoted to the reminiscence of the nation’s bloody battle, whose flooring are paved with melted-down weapons turned in by insurgent fighters after the peace settlement.

Mr. Blinken may also go to two extra international locations that each elected leftist presidents inside the previous 18 months: Peru and Chile.

Whereas polls had instructed that Brazil would additionally elect a leftist, Mr. da Silva, within the first spherical, Mr. Bolsonaro was in a position to drive a runoff vote.

Biden administration officers have declined to weigh in on Brazil’s presidential candidates regardless of their personal distaste for Mr. Bolsonaro, not least as a result of they see his baseless discuss of election fraud as undermining democracy within the area.

On Sunday night time, Mr. Blinken tweeted congratulations to Brazil for its “profitable” first-round election. “We share Brazil’s confidence that the second spherical shall be carried out in the identical spirit of peace and civic obligation,” he added.

No matter variations Mr. Petro might have with Mr. Blinken, he appeared to carry his customer in nice respect.

“I feel you’ll ultimately be U.S. president,” he stated to the diplomat, who is just not recognized to have expressed curiosity in operating for workplace. Mr. Blinken flashed a smile of shock and shook his head.