Donald Trump is expected to meet Colombian President Gustavo Petro on Tuesday after a year of exchanging insults and threats over the United States president’s aggressive foreign policies in Latin America, and Bogota’s war on drugs.Petro’s visit to the White House in Washington, DC, on February 3 comes just one month after the US abduction of Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro in a lightning armed assault on Caracas.Recommended Stories list of 3 itemsend of listThe Colombian leader will likely be seeking to address diplomatic tensions with the US, which have been in disarray since Trump began his second term last year.The 65-year-old left-wing Petro has been a vocal critic of Trump’s foreign policies and recent military operations in the Caribbean Sea as well as of Israel’s war on Gaza – a thorny topic for the US president.Last month, tempers rose again when Trump threatened to target Colombia militarily for allegedly flooding the US with illegal drugs.Have relations between the two always been frosty?No. After Colombia gained independence from Spain in 1819, the US was one of the first countries to recognise Colombia’s independence in 1822. It established a diplomatic mission there in 1823.A year later, the two nations signed a string of treaties focusing on peace, navigation and commerce, according to US government archives.Since then, the two nations have continued to cooperate on security and economic matters. But these efforts have been interrupted at times, such as during the Cold War, by geopolitics and in relation to Colombia’s war on the drug trade. Advertisement Here is a timeline of key …
