All articles tagged with #counternarcotics
Trump and Colombian President Gustavo Petro meet at the White House after a year of heated exchanges, signaling a cautious de-escalation and potential cooperation on narcotics, regional security, and Venezuela, even as fundamental policy disagreements over eradication and interdiction persist and Washington asserts a strong Western Hemisphere footprint.
President Donald Trump welcomed Colombian President Gustavo Petro to the White House for talks on regional security and counternarcotics, weeks after Trump insulted Petro as a 'sick man' fueling cocaine exports. The meeting, aimed at easing tensions and boosting drug-interdiction cooperation, followed a period of friction over Maduro’s case and U.S. sanctions. Petro arrived with gifts, and while the two leaders suggested a path toward closer collaboration, they did not issue joint statements and tensions lingered.
The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime has reported that the global supply of cocaine has reached a record level due to a 35% increase in coca cultivation from 2020 to 2021, the sharpest year-to-year increase since 2016. Counternarcotics police have been conducting eradication operations in countries like Colombia to combat the rise in cultivation.