Gustavo Petro, 62, is a former M-19 guerrillero who in 1985 was captured and tortured by the army, served 18 months in prison, eventually went into politics and in 2022 won election as the 34th president of Colombia—and the first leftist leader in modern Colombian history.

Donald Trump, 78, is a billionaire businessman who in 2016 became the 45th president of the United States and was later impeached twice. Despite having been convicted of 34 felonies, he returned to the White House on Jan. 20 as the most right-wing head of state in American history.

It’s hard to imagine two men more ideologically opposed to each other.

“I don’t like your oil, Trump. It’s going to destroy humanity because of greed,” Petro tweeted earlier this month, at the height of a major blowup over US deportation flights. “Maybe one day, over a glass of whiskey—which I accept despite my gastritis—we can talk frankly about this. But it’s difficult because you consider me part of an inferior race, which I am not, and neither are any Colombians … I resisted torture, and I will resist you.”

Petro, a mestizo descendant of indigenous, African and Italian blood, famously added: “I don’t shake hands with white enslavers.”

This certainly doesn’t make things easy for Daniel García-Peña Jaramillo, who in July presented his credentials to former President Joe Biden as Colombia’s ambassador to the United States. A close confidant of Petro, the 67-year-old García-Peña took over the post from Luís Gilberto Murillo—Colombia’s first black envoy in Washington and now the country’s foreign minister.

“For me, it’s an honor to be the ambassador of the most beautiful country in the world to the most powerful,” García-Peña told The Washington Diplomat in a Feb. 21 interview.

“This administration is doing everything it said it was going to do. President Trump is basically fulfilling what he announced in the campaign, so in that sense, we were prepared,” said the ambassador. “Obviously, we were looking at both scenarios—what would happen if Trump won, and what would happen if [Kamala] Harris won. In the midst of all these differences, we are looking to identify areas where Colombia and the United States can work together.”

He added: “With the Biden administration, it was clear we could cooperate on climate change. We know this is not an issue we’ll be able to work on with this new administration. Withdrawal from the Paris accord is tragic for the future of humanity. We are all aware of the consequences, and we won’t ever see eye-to-eye on this.”

Is the 203-year-old US-Colombian honeymoon over?

With 53 million inhabitants, Colombia is the third most populous nation in Latin America after Brazil and Mexico. It’s also historically Washington’s most reliable ally in the region, with a strong track record in joint efforts against drug trafficking and money laundering. Long associated with lawlessness, drug trafficking, Colombia today is a much more peaceful country than it was in the 1980s. Last year, it welcomed a record 6.2 million tourists, breaking the government’s own projections.

The United States—which established relations with Colombia back in 1822—is Colombia’s largest trade and investment partner, with more than $39.3 billion in bilateral goods and services trade in 2022. Likewise, Colombia is the third-largest US trade partner in Latin America, and US-owned affiliates account for more than 90,000 jobs in Colombia, according to the State Department. Leading US exports to Colombia include oil, corn, and electrical equipment and parts. Primary US imports from Colombia include crude oil, coffee and cut flowers.

But that close relationship began unraveling barely a week after Trump’s inauguration.

On Jan. 27, the new president ordered 25% tariffs on all Colombian products—to be doubled to 50% within one week—after Petro rejected two Colombian-bound US military aircraft carrying migrants, on the grounds that those aboard were being treated inhumanely. Petro then said he’s slap a retaliatory 25% increase in Colombian tariffs on US goods.

“These measures are just the beginning. We will not allow the Colombian Government to violate its legal obligations with regard to the acceptance and return of the Criminals they forced into the United States!” Trump tweeted.

The spat ended nine hours later, after Petro agreed to send his presidential aircraft to retrieve the migrants, and the White House agreed to hold the tariffs “in reserve” for the time being.

“Petro never said we weren’t going to receive the deportees. That was never the issue,” Garciá-Peña told us. “We were able to reach an agreement very quickly. We said ‘OK, if you can send them back without shackles or handcuffs, we’ll send for them ourselves.’”

He added: “These people are not criminals. They crossed the border illegally, but they’re contributing to the US economy. The bottom line showed how diplomatic channels works. I’ve received calls from several other ambassadors saying that our president stood up for all Latin Americans—and that it was important that we put these issues on the table.”

According to García-Peña, close to three million Colombians currently reside in the United States, about 600,000 of whom are undocumented. Of those 600,000, roughly 29,000 are under imminent deportation orders.

“I think everybody’s concerned about mass deportations—not so much the question of how or when, but the ability to go forward with this. We’re worried about the treatment of the deportees and the effect this may have,” he said, noting that Colombians in the US send back $11 billion in remittances annually.

“We’re concerned that this stigmatization of immigrants as criminals could affect their dignity,” he said. “We’re working with our 12 consulates around the country, informing our people what their rights are, and advising them how to prepare for eventual decisions on deportation.”

García-Peña’s long road to Washington

García-Peña, who speaks flawless English, spent his childhood in the United States—much of it in South Florida, where his father was also a diplomat.

The future ambassador taught US history and foreign policy for many years in Colombia, and has held numerous positions overseas. From 1995 to 1998, he was the country’s high commissioner for peace, and later founded the nonprofit group Planeta Paz. And from 2012 to 2015, he was Colombia’s consul-general in Paris, where he engaged with the Colombian diaspora and promoted his country’s cultural and economic interests in France.

The new envoy has also enjoyed a long career in journalism, and his columns in the Bogotá newspaper El Espectador earned him the prestigious Simón Bolívar Journalism Award for Best Column of the Year in 2011.

García-Peña has a bachelor’s degree in political science and history from North Carolina’s Belmont Abbey College, and a master’s in Latin American political studies from the National University of Colombia. His scholarly work includes many publications on conflict resolution, peace processes and political analysis.

“I first met Petro in 1991 at the constitutional convention, when he was demobilized as an M-19 fighter,” García-Peña recalled. “I was his campaign manager when he ran for president the first time, and when he was mayor of Bogotá, I helped him then too.”

Current difficulties notwithstanding, US-Colombia bilateral relations remain close, with 1.4 million Americans visiting Colombia last year. In addition, the US Senate now has two lawmakers of Colombian origin: Rubén Gallego, a Democrat representing Arizona, and Republican Bernie Moreno of Ohio.

Asked if he was surprised by Trump’s return to the White House, García-Peña had this to say: “I always thought Trump’s election was a possibility, but the common thinking was that he would take the Senate and not the House, or that the popular vote would be close. So the results surprised me. It also has to do with how US democracy is evolving. As a political analyst, I continue to be surprised. It’s something we’re still trying to figure out.”

Opposing views on Venezuela and Israel

At the moment, there is no greater crisis in Latin America than the economic and political meltdown in Venezuela, once the wealthiest country in the region on a per-capita basis.

Some seven million refugees have fled Venezuela since the beginning of the crisis, sparked by the policies of the late populist Hugo Chávez and his handpicked successor, Nicolás Maduro.

About 3.2 million of those refugees have fled to neighboring Colombia, said the ambassador.

“Colombia is part of the solution, not part of the problem. These are three million folks who are not trying to reach the US,” he said. “We have integrated them into Colombian society at a cost of 1.2% of our GDP—and we’ve been able to work with the Panamanians to reduce the flow of illegals through the Darien Gap by 40%.”

He added: “A few years ago, Colombia broke relations with Venezuela, closed the border and tried to support [interim leader Juan Guaidó. That did not work, and we ended up handing the border over to illegal armed groups. With the Trump administration’s policy, if Venezuela takes the migrants back, Maduro can continue in power. In any case, Colombia will continue to be willing to help the Venezuelan people resolve this situation.”

Another area where Washington and Bogotá are worlds apart is the ongoing crisis in the Middle East, where Israel has been at war in Gaza for the last 16 months. The latest fighting exploded on Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas terrorists invaded Israel, killed 1,200 people and took some 250 hostage—at least 60 of whom remain in captivity, their fate unknown.

In early May 2024, Petro recalled Colombia’s then-ambassador to Israel, Margarita Manjarréz, permanently closed the country’s embassy in Tel Aviv and subsequently opened one in Ramallah, administrative capital of the Palestinian Authority.

“This is a consequence of how close we are to the cause of the Palestinian people, and of justice in general,” García-Peña responded when asked about the embassy closure. “Petro’s positions on the two-state solution, international law and human rights have been celebrated in many parts of the world. He’s standing up against the genocide of the Palestinian people.”

This makes Colombia only the second country in Latin America to break relations with Israel, following a similar move by Bolivia. The drastic move was all the more striking given that nearly all other countries outraged with Israel’s actions in Gaza—including Egypt, Jordan, Russia, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates—haven’t severed ties with the Jewish state.

“It was a difficult decision, but we have not closed the consulate [in Tel Aviv]. Commercial relations continue, and with the Israeli people we continue to have very close ties,” he said, angrily denying as “absolutely false” any suggestion that Petro is an antisemite. “In fact, many of my Jewish friends in Colombia actually sympathize with a two-state solution.”

Does the left have a future in Colombia?

At this point, the future of Petro’s leadership appears uncertain, following the resignation in recent weeks of several high-ranking members of his cabinet—including the ministers of defense, interior, labor and environment. The upheaval followed Petro’s appointment of the unpopular Armando Benedetti as chief of staff, according to Inter-American Dialogue, a Washington-based think tank.

“Within the executive and legislative branches, those around Petro are losing faith in the administration’s ability to navigate continuing economic concerns and escalating violence in the northeast,” said Jennapher Lunde Seefeldt, associate professor of government and international affairs at Augustana University.

 “As public approval ratings fall, Petro has increasingly wielded executive powers and provoked the unraveling of his coalition. Publicly lambasting his ministers and appointing Armando Benedetti as chief of staff has soured relationships throughout his government,” Seefeldt added. “Benedetti is embroiled in political, corruption and personal scandals, and he seeks to assert his high-ranking yet unelected position due to his influential campaigning for Petro in 2022. Benedetti’s inclusion risks alienating Petro’s supporters and may prove fatal to the president’s ambition for a left-wing alliance in 2026.”

In fact, a poll conducted for Bloomberg News right after the spat over US military deportation flights shows Trump to be more popular than Petro among ordinary Colombians, with a 50% approval rating compared to 42% for Petro.

García-Peña conceded that “it’s easier to protest than to govern,” though he declined to speculate on whether the pendulum could soon swing to the right, as it has in the United States and numerous European countries.

“Ironically, Colombia has always gone in the opposite direction of the rest of the region. In 2002, we elected a right-wing president, Alvaro Uribe, when everyone else went to the left,” he said, noting that few could imagine that one day, a former guerrillero would reside in the Palacio Nariño—Colombia’s equivalent of the White House.

Uribe, incidentally, is on trial in Bogotá for bribery and witness tampering after he allegedly tried to get members of Colombia’s paramilitary armies to change their testimony that the former president had ties to right-wing death squads during the country’s long civil war.

Even so, the ambassador concluded, “Colombian democracy is undergoing a process of evolution, and it’s more solid and vibrant than ever before. I’m absolutely sure that debates about the future of the left and right will be resolved at the ballot box. Many on the left thought the only way to achieve change is through armed struggle. That is behind us.”