Colombian President Gustavo Petro said on Tuesday that Nicolás Maduro should be returned to Venezuela to face trial in his home country, calling the U.S. military operation that captured the ousted leader in Caracas earlier this month a “kidnapping” that violated Venezuelan sovereignty.

“They have to return him and have him tried by a Venezuelan court, not a U.S. one,” Petro said during a public event in Bogotá, days before a scheduled meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump at the White House on Feb. 3.

Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, were captured by U.S. forces on Jan. 3 during a military incursion in Caracas and flown to New York, where they face federal charges including drug trafficking, weapons possession and conspiracy. Both pleaded not guilty at an initial court appearance on Jan. 5 and are being held under maximum-security conditions at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn. A follow-up hearing is scheduled for March 17.

Petro said the operation lacked a legal basis and risked causing long-lasting damage across Latin America. “No one in their right mind would bomb the homeland of Bolívar,” he said, referring to Venezuelan independence hero Simón Bolívar. “No young man or woman in Latin America will forget that missiles fell on the land of Bolívar.”

The Colombian president framed his remarks as part of a broader critique of U.S. foreign policy and international institutions, reviving rhetoric he has used previously against Trump. He argued that the case should be handled within Venezuela’s judicial system, citing what he described as civilizational differences between Latin America and the Anglo-European world.

“The Latin American civilization is different,” Petro said. “That is why he must be judged there, not in the United States.”

Petro’s comments came during an event announcing the reactivation of Bogotá’s historic San Juan de Dios Hospital, where he appeared alongside Mayor Carlos Fernando Galán. Later in the day, Petro again urged Trump to grant Maduro his freedom or return him to Venezuela, while criticising the United Nations for failing to stop the war in Gaza.

“The way to overcome that failure is not with missiles over the poor,” Petro said. “It is not bombing Caracas.”

The remarks come at a sensitive diplomatic moment, as Petro prepares to travel to Washington after the U.S. government granted him a temporary, five-day visa allowing him to attend the Feb. 3 meeting with Trump. The visa will be valid from Feb. 1 to Feb. 5 and is limited exclusively to the official visit, according to Colombia’s presidency.

Petro’s U.S. visa was withdrawn in September following an unscheduled pro-Palestinian speech he gave in New York during the United Nations General Assembly. On Tuesday, he questioned the decision to reinstate it.

“They took away my visa, now they say they put it back,” Petro said. “Why did they take it away from me? I don’t know if it was for a while or permanently. We’ll know on Feb. 3.”

He described the upcoming meeting with Trump as “determinant,” not only for him personally but “for the life of humanity,” language that underscored both the political symbolism and unpredictability surrounding the encounter.

Colombia’s presidential palace confirmed that the bilateral meeting will take place at 11 a.m. on Feb. 3 inside the White House and said the agenda has been set by the U.S. administration. Officials said the talks aim to stabilise bilateral relations, which have been strained in recent months by disagreements over foreign policy and regional security.

Foreign Minister Rosa Villavicencio will also travel to Washington under the same short-term visa arrangement, ensuring her participation in the official programme, the presidency said.

U.S. authorities have accused Maduro and Flores of overseeing armed groups involved in kidnappings and killings and of receiving hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes linked to narcotics trafficking. The Justice Department has declassified indictments related to weapons possession and conspiracy involving machine guns and destructive devices.

Although U.S. authorities had previously offered rewards of up to $50 million for information leading to Maduro’s capture, Washington said no reward would be paid because the arrest was carried out directly by U.S. forces under Trump’s renewed extraction orders.

Petro did not address the specific charges against Maduro, focusing instead on what he said were the broader legal and moral implications of the operation, as Colombia seeks to balance its relationship with Washington while maintaining its longstanding opposition to foreign military interventions in the region.

On Wednesday, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio is due to meet with Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado at the State Department. The meeting follows U.S. intelligence assessments raising doubts over whether Venezuela’s interim Chavista-run government would cooperate with the Trump administration by severing ties with close international allies such as Iran, China and Russia. Reuters has reported that CIA Director John Ratcliffe travelled to Caracas on Jan. 15 for talks related to Venezuela’s political future. “I want to be clear with you what I’ve shared publicly. We made multiple attempts to get Maduro to leave voluntarily and to avoid all of this because we understood that he was an impediment to progress. You couldn’t make a deal with this guy,” remarked U.S Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

It was a frustrating night for the roughly 6,000 supporters gathered in Bogotá’s Plaza de Bolívar to hear President Gustavo Petro deliver what many expected to be a fiery, anti-imperialist address.

After waiting for hours in cold, rainy conditions, demonstrators waved placards reading “Yankee Go Home,” “Out Trump,” and “Respect Colombia,” anticipating a confrontational speech aimed squarely at U.S. President Donald Trump following weeks of diplomatic tension.

Instead, when Petro finally took the stage, the tone of the rally shifted abruptly.

The Colombian president opened by announcing that he would not deliver his prepared speech. Rather than launching into the expected denunciation of Washington, Petro told the crowd that his delay was due to a lengthy phone call with Trump — a revelation that visibly stunned the audience.

As Petro spoke about the conversation, the plaza fell largely silent. Each mention of Trump appeared to drain the rally of its energy, replacing chants and applause with uneasy quiet. What had been billed as a mass show of resistance against U.S. pressure became an unexpected account of diplomatic rapprochement.

According to Petro, the call — conducted with simultaneous translation — lasted close to an hour and marked the first direct conversation between the two leaders since Trump’s return to office. “Today I came with one speech, and I have to give another,” Petro told supporters. “The first one was quite hard.”

A source at the presidential palace told El Colombiano that Petro appeared relaxed during the exchange, smiling several times as he spoke with Trump. A photograph of the moment, later shared by Petro, showed him seated at his desk mid-conversation.

Petro said the discussion focused primarily on drug trafficking, Venezuela and other bilateral disagreements. He acknowledged that significant differences remain but argued that dialogue was preferable to confrontation.

“I know that if anyone were to harm me — in any way — what would happen, given Colombia’s history and the level of support we have reached, is that the Colombian people would enter into conflict,” Petro said during the rally. “If they touch Petro, they touch Colombia.”

The remarks were a response to Trump’s recent comments suggesting that a military operation against Colombia, similar to the one carried out in Venezuela, “sounds good.” Petro, however, struck a notably more conciliatory tone on Wednesday, saying Trump “is not foolish,” even if he disagreed with him.

In a further surprise to supporters, Petro stated publicly that Nicolás Maduro was not his ally, claiming the Venezuelan leader had previously distanced him from Hugo Chávez by preventing him from attending Chávez’s funeral.

Shortly after the call, Trump issued a statement on his Truth Social platform confirming the conversation and signalling a thaw in relations.

“It was a Great Honor to speak with the President of Colombia, Gustavo Petro, who called to explain the situation of drugs and other disagreements that we have had,” Trump wrote. “I appreciated his call and tone, and look forward to meeting him in the near future.”

Trump added that Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Colombia’s foreign minister were already making arrangements for a meeting at the White House in Washington.

Petro confirmed that further discussions would be needed, particularly regarding drug trafficking figures, the role of the ELN guerrilla group along Colombia’s borders and Venezuela’s political future. “We cannot lower our guard,” Petro said. “There are still things to discuss at the White House.”

The president also revealed that he had spoken days earlier with Venezuela’s interim leader Delcy Rodríguez and had invited her to Colombia — a disclosure likely to further complicate regional diplomacy.

What was intended as a show of defiance against Washington ultimately became a public demonstration of Petro’s willingness to recalibrate his strategy, leaving his hardline supporters confused and critics questioning whether the president had overplayed the politics of mobilisation — only to pivot, unexpectedly, toward negotiation.

Colombia’s president, Gustavo Petro, triggered yet another diplomatic rupture in South America on Sunday after denouncing Chile’s president-elect, José Antonio Kast, as a “Nazi,” rejecting the legitimacy of Chile’s democratic choice and sharply diverging from the cautious language typically observed between regional leaders.

Petro’s remarks came within hours of Kast’s decisive victory in Chile’s presidential runoff, in which the conservative candidate secured more than 58 per cent of the vote, defeating hard-left contender Jeannette Jara. Jara conceded promptly, saying that “democracy has spoken loud and clear” and wishing Kast success “for the good of Chile.”

Petro, however, used his social media platform X to frame Kast’s victory as evidence of an advancing wave of fascism in Latin America. “Fascism advances. I will never shake hands with a Nazi or a Nazi’s son, nor will I; they are death in human form,” the Colombian president wrote.

In a retort that called for Chileans to “take care of Neruda’s tomb,” Petro went on to equate Kast’s electoral mandate with the legacy of former dictator Augusto Pinochet. “It’s sad that Pinochet had to impose himself by force, but sadder now is that the people choose their Pinochet: elected or not, they are sons of Hitler and Hitler kills the people,” Petro said, adding that Latin Americans “know how to resist.”

The language marked one of the most explicit attacks by a sitting South American president on a democratically elected counterpart in recent years and raised immediate concerns about the state of Colombia – Chile relations, historically among the region’s most stable.

Kast’s victory completes a broader rightward shift in South American politics, following the election of Javier Milei in Argentina, Daniel Noboa in Ecuador and Nayib Bukele in El Salvador, while Bolivia recently ended nearly two decades of socialist rule with the election of centrist Rodrigo Paz. Petro, the region’s most unhinged left-wing leader, with just eight months remaining in his presidential term, appeared to ignore the potential diplomatic fallout of his remarks.

Within hours of Petro’s statement, US Republican Congressman Carlos Gimenez responded sharply, writing: “This guy (Petro) went too far with the drugs and alcohol. This is the real Gustavo Petro: incoherent, hateful, and schizophrenic.”

Former Colombian president Álvaro Uribe Vélez praised Chile’s electoral process and congratulated Kast, saying the vote had taken place peacefully and reflected citizens’ concerns about security and institutional stability. Uribe described Kast as “a guarantee for democratic institutions” in Chile and the wider region.

Another former president, conservative Andrés Pastrana, issued a sharply worded rebuke of Petro, saying the comments were “inappropriate and irresponsible” and did not represent Colombians nor the long-standing spirit of cooperation between Bogotá and Santiago.

Criticism also came from current lawmakers. Federico Hoyos, a congressman from the department of Antioquia, said Petro had “abandoned his role as head of state” and was acting instead as an “ideological agitator “unwilling to engage with leaders who do not share his views. Andrés Forero, a House representative from the opposition Centro Democrático party, accused Petro of disrespecting the sovereign will of Chilean voters, telling Colombians: “Let’s not fool ourselves, Petro is not a democrat.”

While Petro reviles diplomacy, Kast received public congratulations from international figures across the hemisphere. María Corina Machado, Venezuela’ opposition leader and 2025 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, praised Chile’s election as “an extraordinary electoral day, an example for many nations of Latin America and the world.”

Addressing Kast directly, Machado wrote: “To the president-elect of Chile, José Antonio Kast, I send my affection and congratulations for the trust he has received. In the name of the Venezuelans, I wish him great success in his government.” She added that Venezuelans hoped to count on Kast’s support “to ensure an orderly transition to democracy in Venezuela” and to help build “a safe, prosperous and free hemisphere.”

Machado’s intervention was notable given her continued persecution by the regime of Nicolás Maduro and her public appearance at the Nobel ceremony last week in Oslo, her first in more than a year.

The United States also welcomed Kast’s victory. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Washington looked forward to working with the incoming administration “to strengthen regional security and revitalise our trade relationship.”

Kast’s transition team said the president-elect would travel to Argentina this week to meet President Javier Milei, signalling an intention to align closely with like-minded governments in the region.

For Petro, the episode reinforces international perceptions that he has become an anachronism of regional politics — reliant on social-media provocation and historical revisionism.

For all the historical accuracy that seems to elude Petro, membership in Adolf Hitler’s National Socialist Party was not voluntary. While many Germans joined out of conviction, others were pressured or effectively compelled to enrol, particularly to obtain employment, documentation or travel permits. During and immediately after the Second World War, Germans seeking to live or work abroad — including in South America — were often required to disclose or document prior party affiliation to secure passports and legal work status, complicating later assessments of individual responsibility.

Michael Kast, born in 1924 in Thalkirschdorf, Bavaria, emigrated in Chile in 1946. His youngest son, José Antonio Kast (born 1966, Santiago) has repeatedly claimed his father was a Third Reich conscript.

Whether the outburst leads to lasting diplomatic consequences remains uncertain. But it has underscored how electoral change in Latin America is now accompanied not only by sharp policy shifts, but by open rhetorical conflict by a Colombian leader increasingly isolated among his regional peers, except for one ally, Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro.

On Monday afternoon, Chile’s Minister of the Interior, Álvaro Elizalde, confirmed that a Letter of Protest will be sent to President Petro, stating in no uncertain terms that: “A decision has been made to uphold the point of view that has to do with Chilean democracy. Ultimately, the people of Chile decide, and we all have to respect that outcome”.

Colombia’s Foreign Minister Rosa Villavicencio declared Thursday that the Government of President Gustavo Petro is “not in agreement” with the Nobel Peace Prize awarded to Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado – a position that signals how Colombia remains a close ideological ally of one of the hemisphere’s most authoritarian states.

In remarks that were evasive at best and obtuse at worst, Villavicencio told Caracol Radio that Colombia did not send a delegation to the ceremony in Oslo because the prize “should not be granted to someone who incites aggression.” She accused Machado of having previously endorsed the possibility of foreign intervention to restore democracy in Venezuela — a talking point aligned with Maduro’s narrative but at odds with the reality of Machado’s persecution and exile.

The foreign minister tried to soften the blow by reminding listeners that the Norwegian Committee is “autonomous,” line repeated several times as if to imply Colombia’s hands were tied. But the message was unmistakable: Colombia has chosen the comfort of accommodating a dictatorship over defending a peaceful transition to democracy in Venezuela.

The Petro administration’s stance also signals how a government that claims to champion human rights now shows deference to regimes that imprison, torture, censor, and force political opponents into hiding. Colombia has deliberately refused to stand with a woman who risked her life to defend the most essential freedoms for all Venezuelans.

The contrast between Colombia’s silence and the global celebration of Machado cannot be more glaring. Leaders across Europe, Latin America, and the United States praised her courage, while King Harald of Norway presided over a ceremony attended by Argentina’s Javier Milei, former Colombian president Iván Duque, Panama’s José Raúl Mulino, Ecuador’s Daniel Noboa, and Paraguay’s Santiago Peña.

Machado’s Escape Exposes Bogotá’s Moral Vacuum

While Colombia questions the legitimacy of the award, Machado herself undertook a dramatic escape that underscored the brutality of the regime she confronts – and the grotesque irony of Bogotá’s position.

According to a Wall Street Journal investigation, Machado disguised herself with a wig, crossed ten military checkpoints, boarded a fishing boat to Curaçao, and flew to Oslo on a private jet. After more than a year in hiding, she emerged publicly in Norway. Her daughter, Ana Corina Sosa, accepted the Nobel Prize on her behalf during a emotional ceremony on Wednesday, December 10.

Machado’s audacity – and the global admiration it generated – stands in stark contrast to Colombia’s  political miscalculations.

Villavicencio justified Colombia’s position by claiming Machado had “accepted any kind of military intervention” in Venezuela. But the remark functioned less as diplomacy and more as justification for a government unwilling to break ranks with a regime that operates as the “criminal hub of the Americas”.

Machado told reporters on Thursday, that Venezuela “has already been invaded” by Russian agents, Iranian agents, and terrorist groups Hezbollah and Hamas.  “What sustains the regime is a very powerful and strongly funded repression system. Where do those funds come from? Well, from drug trafficking, from the black market of oil, from arms trafficking and from human trafficking. We need to cut those flows,” stated the Laureate next to Norway’s Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Stoere.

Machado has pledged to return to Venezuela with her Nobel Prize and insists her country will become democratic and free. She has denounced the criminal structures that sustain the Maduro regime and highlighted the broader regional security threat it poses.

Meanwhile, Colombia – critical of Israel’s human rights abuses in the Gaza Strip – has yet to condemn the October 7 massacre committed by Hamas, and remains notably quiet on Maduro’s sprawling torture centre, El Helicoide, in central Caracas.

Petro’s increasingly toxic foreign policy with the Trump administration has now crossed an indelible moral line.  Latin America’s oldest continuous democracy is now publicly undermining a woman targeted by a dictatorship. In doing so, Colombia has distanced itself from other Western nations defending democratic ideals and aligned itself more closely with those eroding them.

The foreign ministry insists its position is based on principle. But to much of the international community, and to a majority of Colombians, the reality is unavoidable: the Petro government is no longer neutral, no longer cautious, and no longer a credible defender of democratic values. It has willingly taken Maduro’s side – and revealed a profound lack of moral courage on the world stage.