Reporters waited hours in Cartagena before Petro’s first phone call with Trump

New York Times reporters spent more than eight hours waiting on a balcony at a naval base in Cartagena to interview Colombia’s President Gustavo Petro before and after his first direct phone call with U.S. President Donald Trump. The wait stretched into the next morning after repeated delays that staff attributed to an alleged unauthorized boat in Colombian waters, a claim that later proved to be a rumor.

While waiting, the reporters watched Mr. Petro post multiple messages on X, including calling Mr. Trump’s attacks symptomatic of a “senile brain” and referring to a “jaguar” awakened by U.S. imperialism, and they were told by aides that the president was overseeing a response to a possible incursion.

The call came after the U.S. military captured Venezuela’s president and after Mr. Trump had said, without evidence, that Mr. Petro was a “sick man” involved in drug trafficking and added that military action against Colombia “sounds good.” Senator Rand Paul and Colombia’s ambassador in Washington helped secure a “yes” for the call; Mr.

Trump posted on Truth Social that it was a “Great Honor,” an aide to Mr. Petro said the call had “gone well,” and Times reporters in the Oval Office listened while Mr. Petro spoke on speakerphone. The contents of the call were off the record. Afterward, Mr. Petro told reporters he had spoken for most of the 55-minute call.

Key Topics

Politics, Gustavo Petro, Donald Trump, Colombia, Cartagena, Bogotá