Drug Policy and Trafficking

Colombian President Gustavo Petro is traveling to Washington for a White House meeting with President Trump as record cocaine production and an explosion of armed trafficking militias strain what was once Washington’s most reliable alliance in Latin America. The Wall Street Journal reports Colombia is now producing nearly nine times as much cocaine as in 2012, while heavily armed narcotics militias have doubled in size since 2022, prompting the U.S. to threaten cutting foreign aid and to sanction Petro personally for allegedly failing to curb the trade. In advance of the visit, Defense Minister Gen. Pedro Sánchez has told U.S. officials Colombia is "cracking down," citing security‑service claims that they are destroying a cocaine‑production lab every 40 minutes and seized almost 2 million pounds of cocaine last year, enough to tighten supply and push prices higher. The meeting matters to a U.S. audience because Colombia is a central source of cocaine reaching American streets, and a rupture in security cooperation or aid could reshape both drug flows and U.S. influence in a region where Trump is already pursuing aggressive maritime strikes and sanctions.