Petro, a leftist and former rebel, has become one of the most outspoken critics of this U.S. foreign policy worldwide, often finding himself on Trump’s blacklist.
The Colombian president avoided direct criticism of Trump, instead referencing their February meeting in the White House as an example of the kind of intercontinental dialogue he advocates for. Before that meeting, Trump had called Petro a “sick man;” afterwards, he said Petro was “terrific.”
During a conversation with POLITICO, held in the ornate front room of the Colombian ambassador’s Vienna residence, Petro saved his hardest criticism for U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and former Trump adviser and billionaire Elon Musk.
Rubio defended “Western civilization” bound by “Christian faith” at the Munich Security Conference in February, identifying mass migration as a crisis destabilizing societies “all across the West.” Musk, on the other hand, has described “empathy” as Western civilization’s Achilles’ heel.
Petro criticized what he perceived as their promotion of a “white, Christian, Western civilization,” cautioning against attempting to revive “the age of the Crusades.” He said such ideas are outdated and would lead to “enormous levels of violence within each society.”
He then praised Europe’s diversity, which he described as an “asset” despite the potential for conflict: “I believe that understanding societies in their diversity does not mean nullifying European history or European history in America,” he said.
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