The cocaine and Biden problem with the South’s newfound confidence

Pablo Escobar is dead, but his spirit is more alive than ever. Fortunately, the handful of hippos that the Colombian drug lord kept on his hacienda in the 1990s have multiplied, even though the compound has long since been abandoned. The tropical climate suits them well and since they have no natural enemies there, they terrorize both the environment and people. Just like the man who, in his delusion of grandeur and luxury, once had the animals smuggled to Colombia.

Not only the hippos are still there. Also the cocaine. Since US President Richard Nixon declared war on the drug lords in 1971 and declared drugs the number one enemy of the state, this enemy has not become smaller, but has grown larger. The breakup of the major cartels, the Medellín Cartel Escobars and its competition in Cali, is considered the great success of the war on drugs.

However, the gaps this created in the drug market were filled by many other players. In Colombia they included paramilitaries, in Mexico other cartels. Not only do they smuggle cocaine across the northern border, they also smuggle fentanyl, which kills tens of thousands every year in the United States. The demand is high – and the coca fields in the green hills of Colombia are more profitable than ever.

“The war on drugs has failed”bellowed President Gustavo Petro of Colombia at the United Nations General Assembly last summer. It stood out for its clarity, not just because Petro had just been elected. But also because this ruling – and the political steps that accompanied it – to waive a decades-long commitment in U.S.-Colombia relations seemed.

Allow the cultivation of coca plants and partially decriminalize drugs? Make peace with armed groups instead of fighting them with military force? Stop the mass clearance of coca fields and the extradition of drug lords to the US?

A cool conversation

In earlier times that would have been unthinkable. But Petro, Colombia’s first left-wing president, a young guerrilla and later an economist, took office with confidence. A pragmatic approach to drug policy is needed, not a ‘fundamentalist’ one. The responsibility lies with the countries where drugs are used. And: the fossil greed of the major industrialized countries is deadlier than cocaine. Such words raised eyebrows in Washington, DC. Colombia is an important country for US influence in the region, receiving hundreds of millions of dollars in aid.

Petro’s first visit to US President Joe Biden was therefore eagerly awaited. When the two heads of government sat together in the White House this Thursday, they sang the usual duet of strong partnership and indispensable cooperation on such occasions. But Petro’s performance indicated that the private conversation that followed might have been cooler.

During Biden’s short words of welcome, he didn’t smile or look back. He himself spoke about the value of democracy in the West for about twice as long — so fundamental and lecturing that many on the American side may have taken it as an insult. Especially since Petro made a similar move to US Secretary of State Antony Blinken a few months ago, cheating him in a joint appearance by suggesting that Blinken would definitely want to become president later.

The result of the meeting shows the limits of both: Colombia’s new self-confidence and the US’s old. Both Biden and Petro have committed to a “holistic approach” to combating the harmful effects of drugs, according to the official communiqué. Petro wants to hunt the big fish – money launderers and drug dealers – instead of robbing small farmers in remote areas of their livelihoodsin which the coca plants spread during the pandemic.

The US has so far stuck to its strategy of clearing the coca fields. After the meeting, the White House said Biden had expressed his country’s willingness to “transform” growing areas and improve conditions for local people. This is formulated without obligation, but it is a concession. The president of a Latin American country has apparently successfully made the US president responsible for agreeing to reforms – not the other way around. In the context of the past 50 years, this is quite historic.

For his part, Petro somewhat sheepishly asks for support in the war he had so eloquently denounced less than a year ago. “I asked for a little more help”he said after meeting with Biden. “We need more boats and more drones.” In some cases, Petro has already had to withdraw from the “total peace” his government had declared in December and sealed with a ceasefire. The country’s largest drug ring, the Gulf clan, broke the deal and shot at police officers, the president tweeted in late March. The reality of the decades-long intertwining of drugs and violence seemed to overtake the peace plan even before it got off the ground.

But Petro does not want to deviate from that. Just as he was undeterred from approaching Venezuelan autocrat Nicolás Maduro, this too is a paradigm shift from his predecessors. After years, the border between the two countries is open again, diplomatic relations have resumed – and Petro lobbied Biden to ease US sanctions against Maduro’s regime.

Boycott paid off

The fact that the Biden administration is open to this – albeit under certain conditions – could not only be due to the fact that oil reserves there have become more attractive in the energy crisis caused by the war in Ukraine. Tankers carrying Venezuelan oil were allowed to dock in the Gulf of Mexico for the first time in three years in December. Critics like Petro argue that the sanctions have only increased the suffering of the Venezuelan people. And this suffering, there is much more agreement on, contributes to a growing movement of refugees that the United States is all too eager to keep away from its borders.

For that, Biden needs partners like Petro. A few days ago, a 60-day program was announced by which both countries and Panama want to try to close off the Darién Isthmus, through which all people fleeing north from Latin America must pass. Other countries where the US was once happy to intervene are increasingly unfazed by US influence. El Salvador and Guatemala, two of the most common countries of origin, not only ignore efforts to punish corruption and the dismantling of democracy. But also the Summit of the Americas last summer in Los Angeles, where migration was central.

Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador also announced his boycott of this meeting – and was rewarded a short time later with an invitation to the White House. Mexico is indispensable to the US: it has largely delegated the reception of people seeking protection, the start of the asylum procedure and the deportation to the neighboring country. However, the question remains whether Mexico can handle it – not to mention the humanitarian situation. The same goes for Colombia. The smugglers who smuggle asylum seekers north through the Darién are as brutal as they are experienced. With “total calm” it should not be far off, it is not known what the closure of the Darién should look like. Last but not least, this should mean suffering for the people who are already desperate from the long flight.

But Biden is now under pressure, a year and a half before the election. The Republicans are breathing down his neck when it comes to drugs and migration, two welcome campaign issues for populists. And any softening from Venezuela, however small, is unlikely to go down well with voters. Especially in the important swing state of Florida, many Americans of Venezuelan descent live, where Senator Marco Rubio has already attacked Petro as an “agent of chaos” during his visit.

In that regard, the Colombian president is a difficult partner for Biden. At best, his political and self-assured demeanor is a challenge, at worst a liability. After all, both have the same stated goals when it comes to one important topic: fighting the climate crisis and moving away from fossil fuels. Here too, Petro had formulated grand plans before taking office, such as getting out of coal, which, partly due to the attack on Ukraine, threatens to be overtaken by reality. Colombia’s energy and mining sectors account for nearly 60 percent of the country’s exports and provide more than half a million jobs.

Biden might like Petro still pursuing his climate goals. Even if the US under him pursues a partially protectionist approach to climate and economic policies and continues to discuss the inflation reduction bill with Europe, the president knows that we need as many international allies as possible for the future, especially in this one region. . Perhaps the Petro government can hope that in the future the US will focus mainly on achieving the climate goals in Colombia more quickly.

Only those who feel responsible for the hippos, who have remained untouched by the war on drugs, or some of them couldn’t even find a place in US zoos – that remains to be seen for now.

This article was first published on Zeit Online. Watson may have changed the headings and subheadings. Here’s the original.