SCOTT DETROW, HOST:
President Trump will host Colombian President Gustavo Petro tomorrow at the White House. It's an unusual invitation because Petro is one of Trump's most strident critics. What's more, their meeting comes on the heels of Trump's threats to take military action against Colombia. Here's reporter John Otis.
JOHN OTIS, BYLINE: Trump and Petro are an odd couple. Trump started out as a real estate tycoon. Petro started out preaching revolution as part of a left-wing guerrilla group before he disarmed and jumped into Colombian politics. While many other world leaders have flattered or bowed down to Trump, Petro has stood up to him, or at least he's tried to.
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PRESIDENT GUSTAVO PETRO: (Speaking Spanish).
OTIS: Shortly after Trump was sworn in for his second term, Petro refused to accept U.S. military flights bringing undocumented migrants back to Colombia. Trump responded by threatening a devastating trade war with Colombia, and Petro was forced to retreat. Trump then mercilessly mocked Petro.
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PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Remember Colombia said, we will not - we will not take them back, he said. And within about 13 minutes, I think, oh, we would love to take them back. In fact, we will send our planes to pick them up. Remember?
(LAUGHTER)
OTIS: Even so, Petro has continued to hammer Trump on everything from his lethal strikes on suspected drug boats in the Caribbean Sea to U.S. military support for Israel's invasion of Gaza.
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PETRO: (Speaking Spanish).
OTIS: In his most provocative move in September, when he was at the U.N., Petro took to the streets of New York to publicly urge American soldiers to disobey Trump. That prompted Washington to revoke Petro's U.S. visa and place financial sanctions on him.
SERGIO GUZMAN: Petro, he is trying to rally the world to oppose Donald Trump or to at least resist him.
OTIS: Sergio Guzman is the director of the Bogota consulting firm Colombia Risk Analysis.
GUZMAN: But everybody else put their head down, right? That resistance has been futile so far.
OTIS: For his part, Trump has claimed, without evidence, that Petro is a, quote, "drug leader" who's flooding the U.S. with cocaine. Following the U.S. raid last month that captured Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and brought him to New York to face drug charges, Trump, speaking aboard Air Force One, suggested Petro could meet a similar fate.
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TRUMP: Colombia is very sick, too, run by a sick man who likes making cocaine and selling it to the United States. And he's not going to be doing it very long, let me tell you.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: So there will be an operation by the U.S. in...
TRUMP: I...
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: ...Colombia?
TRUMP: It sounds good to me.
OTIS: But unlike Venezuela, Colombia has been for decades Washington's closest ally in Latin America and a key trade partner. Guzman points out that the country is often portrayed as a U.S. foreign policy success story. That's because huge sums of American aid helped bring Colombia back from the brink in the 1990s and early 2000s, when it was under siege from guerrilla groups and cocaine kingpins.
GUZMAN: Both on the Republican and the Democratic side, there's an understanding that Colombia worked out well. Like, this is not a partner you want to necessarily alienate.
OTIS: Finally, after much backdoor diplomacy, Petro surprised his audience in this speech last month.
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PETRO: (Speaking Spanish).
(BOOING)
OTIS: He announced that for the first time ever, he had actually spoken with President Trump. Their phone conversation lasted nearly an hour, with Trump later saying that it was, quote, "a great honor" to speak with Petro. Afterwards, Petro received his White House invitation, as well as a special five-day U.S. visa.
ADAM ISACSON: But here you have two populist leaders who are outspoken, who tweet 50 times a day, very kind of similar personalities, really.
OTIS: That's Adam Isacson of the Washington Office on Latin America, a research and advocacy group.
ISACSON: It's hard to say how hunky-dory the relationship is going to remain, but there is this detente right now, in my view because the two men had an opportunity to talk to each other.
OTIS: However, if the two men clash, their encounter could resemble the infamous Oval Office dustup between Trump and Ukraine's president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Either way, they won't have to deal with each other much longer. Petro will leave office in August when his four-year term comes to an end.
For NPR News, I'm John Otis in Bogota, Colombia. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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