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.