You know.
I was here on January third when Maduro was extracted from his country. It was a very surreal moment, as you can imagine. And I remember being here in Bogota in Colombia, and people were stunned because everybody was just thinking, what did just happen?
And is Columbia next.
Monica ville Mezza is a Colombian journalist in Bogata, where the president, Gustav Petro, has been trading bubs with Donald Trump for months.
Trump had been asked a couple of times by different journalists, is Petro the Columbia president next? And he was calling him a thog, a drug trafficker. He better watch his behind. He's no friend of the United States. He's very bad, very bad guy.
And he's got to watch his ass because he makes cocaine and they send it into the United States of America from Colombia.
There's absolutely no proof that Petro was a drug trafficker whatsoever, but he kept sort of saying that there could be armed strikes on land in Colombia.
He has cocaine mills and cocaine factories.
He's not going to be doing.
Good will be in operation by the US and how it sounds good.
To be Columbia looks like it could be next on Trump's hit list, until an unexpected phone call turn things around. Now the volatile pair is set to meet in the White House today. I'm Nicole Johnston and you're listening to seven AM today Monica Villemza on drugs, deportations, and the danger of what could happen next if Trump and Petro don't make up. It's Tuesday, February three. So Monica, where does this all begin? Between Trump and the Colombian President Gusta Petro.
To give of your audience a little bit of contact, the whole fate started when Trump's started deporting migrants. A lot of them were Colombians, and the ones he was sending to Columbia were shackled in the plane, and Petro thought that it wasn't dignified and he was very vocal about it. And then Trump said I'm going to apply tariffs on the whole country, and that was nearly catastrophic because a third of Columbian exports go to the United States.
That didn't happen, But then he put Petro on something that we call here the Clinton List. It bars individuals from conducting any transaction with any company that's affiliated to the US financial system, so you essentially have to do all your transactions in cash.
President of the General Assembly in my first speech.
Then Petro goes to the United Nations General Assembly in September and he has a very strong vision of the war on drugs, criticizing Trump's approach.
The anti drug policy is not meant to stop cocaine that is coming to the United States. The anti drug policy is to dominate the peoples of the South as a whole.
Then he joins some anti Israeli protests in the street, takes a megaphone and starts saying that American soldiers should defect, which is a clear act of provocations.
Gone Lord, than the Trump our. There's gone Lord and money.
That Trump and all of the White House understandably are furious about this.
The United States says it's revoking Colombian President Gustavo Petro's visa after he joined a pro Palestinian rally in New York on Friday and called on US soldiers to disobey President Donald Trump's orders.
And mon, could you tell us a bit about the massive protests that we had on January seven after Venezuela.
It was a massive protest that Petro called for. He was very critical, as you said, of Trump violating a country's sovereignty. And I think because that rhetoric had been ramped up up to that point where they said Columbia could be next, Petro, You're next.
Well, the rallies on the streets across Columbia just show how much the relationship with Washington DC is deterior. Writing here in Columbia, these people have gathered to the street.
You know, the states were very high.
But funnily enough, when he came out and spoke to the protest, he had just gone off the phone with Trump where things were smoothed out apparently, and this meeting that we're going to have on Tuesday between both heads of states in Washington d C. Was planned during that phone call, so we know it was like fifteen minutes long.
Petro talked for about forty minutes, apparently explaining that he was in fact combating drug trafficking and and you know, he was very much trying to be part of this war on drugs and cooperate, and all of a sudden, Trump ended up saying that he was honored to have spoken to the president, so everything shifted, you know, one pint eighty Petro.
I mean, he sounds like quite a character. To put him mildly, could you describe first what kind of lada he is.
He is a character, You're absolutely right.
I mean, he was a rebel gorilla fighter M nineteen was a gorilla movement that demobilized in the nineties, so he took up arms as a gerilla fighter, then he demobilized. He is a left wing president, which is very rare in Columbia. We've had mostly center or right wing presidents in the past, and he's had controversial policies and his critics will say he's a populist. The country's not doing very well economically right now. Some people blame him, obviously,
some others don't. He does have a lot of support, but he has been a different president in Columbia.
So, as you said, Trump's accused Petro of trafficking cocaine to the US. Now, you've been covering the drugs trade in Columbia for years now, could you tell us how it operates there, who's behind it, where.
Is it at It seems like a question that could be answered simply, but sadly it's not. The cocaine trade in Colombia is bigger than ever. Pablo Escobar, you know, with the famous dog Lord of the eighties, he could have never imagined how much cocaine there is these days. And it's basically controlled by gorilla groups that sort of starting taxing the coca crops and then started doing more than taxing and became involved in the transportation and distribution
of cocaine. There's huge routes that leave Columbia through the Pacific, but also through the Caribbean. The country has two oceans, so obviously many many ports, and a lot of places that are effectively abandoned by the government. That makes this drug trade thrive. And as you can imagine, you know, places where there's not a lot of opportunity, people are poor, it does become a way out of poverty for many people.
So it's something that.
Clements have lived with for many years and something that's actually on the rise.
Coming up.
What a former gorilla fighter and a real estate tycoon have in common. So we now have this meeting set for Tuesday in the US between Trump and Petro. What is it that each leader wants to try and get out of it. Well.
Look, I think Colombia because of its economy, the ties it has with America.
It has been America's closest ally in the region for decades. They have military cooperation.
The biggest source of financial investment independent investment in Umbia is America. I think Petro really wants to keep these ties closed. It doesn't seem like it's convenient for the economy and for security, etc. For both countries to be fighting, but especially Columbia would have a lot more to lose. I think Trump, on the other hand, wants someone to maybe help mediate with Venezuela. You know, Petro was very close and was very close to Maduro, and he's still
close to the government there. It's better to have an ally in the region like it always has been in terms of counter narcotics. But the real problem is drug trafficking, and I think maybe Trump feels that if they work together they can achieve more than fighting. It's hard to tell. It really is a wild card. I mean a lot of people here are sort of saying this could go very well or it could go very very badly, almost like a sort of repeat of the Zelenski disastrous.
White House meeting that you probably remember.
So what it sounds like there's a riding on this meeting between the two of them. What could it actually mean for the rest of Latin America, not just Columbia.
I mean, it's a very good question. The thing that Trump is probably thinking long term is maybe recovering some of the influence that America had economically financially in terms of oil for instance, from the region being more having better ties and exploiting these resources more so that China and other players don't, you know what I mean, It's a lot more about geopolitics. So I think he wants to rely more on this neighboring countries, these countries that
have historically been very close to the United States. He doesn't want China, Russia, etc. To have a growing influence which they were having in Latin America. And I think it's really interesting to see people that are leaders that really admired Trump that have become his friends, like Milay in Argentina. How you know, Trump has really given him a lifeline. He saved an economy that effectively in shambles. So he's trying to show that maybe it pays to
be on his side. But of course, there's a lot of history that and you know that doesn't help in terms of these countries having a colonial past with the United States.
So mon, all eyes are going to be on DC in this big meeting between Trump and Petro. What do you think is the best way for Petro to go about dealing with Trump? Because he's been pretty bullish so far. Is that working for him?
I think being bullish hasn't worked. Trump doesn't take sort of humiliation or provocation very well, and I think he has definitely shown that he is willing to change his stone a little bit.
Regarding Trump and vice versa.
Trump really did say it was an honor to speak and I quote the word an honor to speak to President Petro. He explained things I understand it better now. So very recently, he's also talked about Maduro being sort of kidnapped and spoken against it. So I don't think they ever see ido eye on Venezuela. You know what's really interesting is that they have very opposing personalities. They said, at opposing ends of the political spectrum. They couldn't be
more different than each other. You know, you have a real estate tycoon from New York and this former gorilla fighter who demobilized in the nineties.
But they are very similar as well.
They have these kind of very larger than live personalities.
They can be quite controversial.
They always tack to Twitter and like ranting and sort of attacking each other. But let me remind you that this meeting that we're going to see is still very much a wildcard. Nobody knows what's going to happen, and both personalities being sort of mombastic and controversial, it will be very interesting to see what's going to come out of it.
Mon thank you so much for joining us on seven AM.
Thank you so much for having me.
Also in the news, mortgage holders are bracing for an interest rate rise when the Reserve Bank meets later today.
The majority of.
Economists are expecting a quarter of a percent jump in the official cash rate due to a bump in inflation over December. It's a big u turn for the RBA, which cut interest rates as recently as August, and Australia's biggest political donors have been revealed, with Clive Palmer topping
the list. Palmer donated fifty three million dollars to his own trumpet of Patriots Party, while Gina Reinhardt's company donated almost a million to right wing political lobby group Advance Labour scored more than four million dollars worth of donations from the unions. I'm Nicole Johnston. This is seven AM.
Catch a later
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