Will Petro stand up to Trump on climate?
Petro can confront Trump on climate change and risk confrontation or focus on a gas deal among other areas, that improves relations with Washington.
By Guy Edwards
When Colombia’s president, Gustavo Petro meets President Donald Trump for the first time at the White House on Tuesday, the two men will arrive with clashing worldviews and policy agendas. They disagree on multiple issues from climate change to Venezuela and neither man is known for diplomatic restraint.
Yet amid the tension, one unlikely area of cooperation could emerge: Venezuelan natural gas.
A deal to export Venezuelan natural gas exports to Colombia could help to help improve US–Colombian relations and provide political wins for both leaders. For Trump, it would offer a chance to generate potential business opportunities for US companies to support the rehabilitation of Venezuela’s languishing oil and gas industry.
For Petro, it would provide the means to diversify Colombia’s gas supplies and lower prices for consumers without torpedoing key energy transition pledges. However, the costs would be high. A deal on gas would deepen Colombia’s dependence on this fossil fuel, expose the gap between Petro’s climate rhetoric and political necessity and serve to legitimise Venezuela’s authoritarian regime.
Rapprochement
The deal on gas is counterintuitive given both leaders’ sharply divergent views on climate and energy. Trump says climate change is “the greatest con job ever perpetrated on the world”. Conversely, Petro states the climate crisis can “only be overcome if we stop consuming hydrocarbons”, and with the Netherlands is organizing the First International Conference on a Just Transition away from Fossil Fuels this April.
Petro has called the White House meeting “fundamental and decisive” not only for him personally, “but for the life of humanity”. He plans to pitch a pact to capitalise on Latin America’s clean energy potential to Trump.
That proposal will likely fall flat. The US president has not shown any interest in Petro’s energy transition agenda, including a similar proposal, communicated last year, to create a hemispheric clean energy alliance. Nor is the US government supporting Colombia’s Country Platform to help finance its energy transition.
Despite a tough agenda, Venezuela’s oil and gas sector offers both leaders common ground. While Petro is critical of fossil fuels generally, his stance on gas is more positive stating “gas is not the future, it is only the present” and it must finance the transition. However, this is risky given natural gas is a potent greenhouse gas. Further dependence risks locking in infrastructure that could become stranded assets while undermining Colombia’s ability to achieve its Paris commitments.
Nonetheless, the incentives are tempting. The Petro government is keen to import Venezuelan gas as Colombia lost its gas self-sufficiency in 2024. Facing dwindling gas reserves and costly LNG (liquefied natural gas) imports, it wants to diversify. Importing gas from Venezuela would be cheaper. Petro has publicly urged Ecopetrol to accelerate preparations to import gas and has said he would raise the issue both with Washington and Caracas. Ecopetrol is reportedly assessing how to import Venezuela’s gas should US sanctions ease and if a deal can be done in Washington. Caracas has already signalled support to export gas.
Yet any deal to attempt to reopen the Antonio Ricaurte pipeline, owned by Petróleos de Venezuela (PDVSA), would require big investment to rebuild various sections and take a year or two. However, challenges abound. The US is the main export of LNG to Colombia. Venezuelan imports would be seen as competing with US commercial interests, even if Colombia continues to expand its LNG capacity. And while sanctions relief is a step forward, investors will remain skittish without robust legal protections and the need for legitimate institutions, which entails a return to democracy.
Petro could plausibly sell this deal at home. It would not break any of his flagship pledges, including ending the granting of new contracts for oil and gas exploration and halting pilot fracking projects. It could lower prices and blunt opposition attacks in favour of fracking. Critics would argue that it supports the authoritarian regime in Caracas. But if the deal carries Washington’s blessing, much of that criticism would be neutralized.
Petro has tried to deescalate tensions with Washington following Trump’s threats to strike drug sites in Colombia. His January phone call with Trump calmed tempers and led to the White House invitation. However, the détente is precarious. Trump has little patience for lectures or criticism, and Petro has a habit of speaking his mind and veering off topic. Even a minor provocation — a remark on Venezuela, ICE, or the US military— could derail the meeting.
Petro must strike the right balance between deference and resolve since Trump prefers leaders who back themselves. He will also have to make a choice. Petro can confront Trump on climate change and risk confrontation or focus on a gas deal (among other areas), that improves relations with Washington. Given the stakes facing Petro personally and for Colombia, political expediency and US pressure may outweigh confrontation, making a deal on Venezuelan gas, more tempting than a showdown—even face to face with his nemesis on climate change.
Guy Edwards is a PhD candidate in International Relations at the University of Sussex, focusing on the politics of energy transitions in Colombia, and also a scholar at the Climate Social Science Network and co-coordinator of the Latin America and the Caribbean Research Network at Sussex.