Petro's coca-substitution push meets Trump’s pressure in Washington
Colombia’s president Gustavo Petro is shifting away from forced coca eradication toward voluntary crop substitution (PNIS) to replace coca with legal crops, a policy praised for rural-benefit but criticized for not yet delivering lower coca cultivation or cocaine production amid continuing US pressure from Donald Trump; the program pairs farmer support with enforcement against traffickers, while numbers from the UN remain contested and political tensions rise ahead of May elections.