Colombian president's bold proposal: A merger with Venezuela to counter U.S. aggression
BOGOTA, Colombia – Colombian President Gustavo Petro has a bold proposal in response to the United States’ mounting military presence in the Caribbean: A union between Colombia and Venezuela.
The South American leader is floating the idea of recreating Gran Colombia, a republic formed in 1821 that encompassed modern day Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador and Panama.
Analysts and political insiders downplayed the likelihood of such a move, but the proposal underscores the breakdown in relations between Washington and Bogota, historically the White House’s closest ally in the region. Petro’s comments are the latest in a bitter feud with U.S. President Donald Trump, who recently sanctioned Petro and his inner circle, alleging without proof that the Colombian is “an illegal drug dealer.”
In a fiery speech last week, Petro railed against Trump’s actions in South America, which have ranged from tariffs to a strike campaign against alleged drug boats, killing more than 70 people since September.
“America is not a continent of kings or princesses, princes or despots,” said the president in reference to Trump and his military manoeuvres in the region. “Every dictator who has appeared here has faced rebellion,” he continued, “isn’t it time, then, to talk about Gran Colombia again?”
Petro proposed the union as a solution to countering U.S. aggression, comparing the need to resist Trump with independence hero Simon Bolívar’s revolutionary struggle against Spain.
The next day, Petro doubled down on his comments, writing in an X post: “I propose to the peoples inhabiting this territory demarcated in 1819 to realize … the reconstruction of this idea … of a Gran Colombia.”
Despite Petro repeatedly suggesting recreating Gran Colombia, his interior minister and right-hand man, Armando Benedetti, downplayed the proposal as symbolic.
“It is very difficult to imagine that five or six countries … with so-called solid democracies, will somehow come together to form a single country,” the minister told the National Post.
Sergio Guzmán, director at Colombia Risk Analysis, a Bogota-based political consultancy, also noted the impracticalities of the proposal, which he described as having been “part of Petro’s imaginary and pipe dreams for decades.”
Indeed, it is not the first time the president has proposed a return to Gran Colombia; he also invoked the idea earlier this year to justify attending Ecuadorian President Daniel Noboa’s inauguration.
The notion of Gran Colombia and the rhetorical figure of Simon Bolívar, the region’s independence hero, are important parts of Petro’s leftist ideology, according to Guzmán: “Petro shares that sort of Bolivarian vision of a grand unity … and will strive for this, regardless of what anybody says and thinks, because this is part of his political identity.”
Since Trump assumed office in January, he has clashed with Petro on a slew of issues, from deportations to drugs.
Relations deteriorated dramatically in September, when the Trump administration began bombing boats in the Caribbean and decertified Colombia as a partner in the war on drugs.
Later that month, Petro had his U.S. visa revoked during a visit to New York in which he called on American troops to disobey orders over the war in Gaza.
In October, the Colombian president stepped up his criticism of Trump, accusing him of “murder” over a boat strike he said killed an innocent Colombian fisherman. In response, Trump declared Petro “an illegal drug dealer” and “a thug,” adding him to the Clinton List of sanctioned individuals, alongside members of his inner circle. Petro, his wife and son, and minister Benedetti had their U.S. assets frozen as a result.
According to Guzman, there is little room for bilateral relations to deteriorate further: “I don’t think it can get any worse … (and) I don’t think it’s gonna get any better.”
Latin America Reports
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