Petro's Retreat From Responsibility

President Gustavo Petro is coming to Washington to repair a relationship his own policies helped fracture. The visit is framed as a reset. In reality, it is a reckoning. Colombia did not lose Washington overnight. It drifted away, one indulgence at a time, under the comforting illusion that history, sentiment, and good intentions could substitute for results.

For decades, Colombia was the United States’ most serious partner in the hemisphere. Not perfect, not pristine, but disciplined. It fought cartels as criminal enterprises, treated armed groups as enemies of the state, and understood that sovereignty meant exercising control rather than explaining its absence. That consensus has eroded under Gustavo Petro, not because he is a man of the left, but because he governs as if outcomes are optional and rhetoric is policy.

The most obvious fracture is cocaine. Colombia today produces more of it than at any point in its history. Armed groups tied to the trade have expanded, not shrunk. Eradication collapsed while cultivation surged. This is not a debate about theory or compassion. It is arithmetic. When production rises and enforcement falls, criminal networks grow richer, more violent, and more politically embedded.

Nowhere is this clearer than with Clan del Golfo. Once weakened through sustained military and police pressure, the group has adapted quickly to Petro’s permissive security environment. It taxes coca, controls trafficking corridors, intimidates communities, and exploits ceasefires and negotiations to consolidate territory. Calling this “dialogue” does not change what it is. Clan del Golfo is not a social movement or a misunderstood actor. It is a vertically integrated criminal enterprise whose business model depends on the state looking the other way.

Petro’s defenders point to seizures and argue that the old approach failed. Both claims miss the point. Seizures without sustained pressure upstream simply reward traffickers who price losses into their margins. And yes, past strategies were imperfect. But abandoning enforcement while extending political oxygen to groups like Clan del Golfo is not reform. It is abdication dressed up as empathy.

Washington noticed. Under Donald Trump, the response has been blunt. Decertification. Aid freezes. Tariffs. Visa revocations. Public pressure rather than private indulgence. Critics call this punitive or ideological. It is neither. It reflects a basic premise of statecraft. Partnerships are built on performance, not narratives.

What Petro seems to misunderstand is that U.S. patience with Colombia was never unconditional. It was earned year after year through measurable effort and shared risk. When Bogotá signals that criminal groups are negotiating partners rather than targets, it sends a clear message to Washington that Colombia no longer views the drug economy as a strategic threat requiring coercion. That is not a philosophical disagreement. It is a breach of trust.

The damage extends beyond security. Business confidence has deteriorated. Legal uncertainty has increased. Investors now price Colombia as a political risk story rather than a regional anchor. ANDI’s concern is not partisan. It is institutional. Industrial planning cannot survive in a country where the state hesitates to confront armed criminal power while assuring investors that stability will somehow follow.

This is not nostalgia for Plan Colombia. It is memory. Colombia moved forward when it combined legitimacy with force, social investment with enforcement, and sovereignty with accountability. It stalled when ideology replaced discipline and symbolism replaced results.

Petro is nearing the end of his term. That matters. Colombia is not condemned to this path. The country can move back toward the center, rebuild credibility, and reassert itself as a serious U.S. partner rather than a lecturing bystander to its own decline. Washington, for its part, should remain firm but open. Pressure works when it leaves a door open for leaders prepared to govern like adults.

The correction required is straightforward. Restore eradication as a core pillar. Treat Clan del Golfo and similar groups as criminals, not interlocutors. Rebuild operational cooperation with the United States without theatrics. Reassure investors that rules still mean something. None of this precludes social reform. It simply requires governing like a state that intends to remain one.

If Colombia wants to matter again to Washington, it must first take responsibility for itself. Alliances do not fail because of misunderstanding. They fail when one side stops doing the work.