Gustavo Petro: ‘I was wrong to believe that I could make a revolution by governing’

The clock strikes 3 p.m. and the president of Colombia, Gustavo Petro, arrives at the Gobelins Hall in the Casa de Nariño, his official residence, visibly tired. He says that he has a “virus with everything” and he lets himself fall into the golden chair from which he will talk for almost two hours with EL PAÍS. He barely gestures and, at first, responds by making long historical circumlocutions. They disappear as the interview progresses, to give way to the tough and warrior-like Petro that everyone is familiar with, a president who, at 64 years old, defends his administration tooth and nail, but in whom the bitterness and disappointments of power are also evident.

Question. What have you learned in these two and a half years as president?

Amswer. This is absolute unhappiness. It is a sacrifice. The first thing they tried to destroy was my family. They wanted to destroy the emotional ties because a man without emotional ties becomes hard, bad, and errs. I isolated myself. This palace, a poor French imitation, I don’t like it at all. It must be full of ghosts. I feel like bringing in an expert in these matters. In any case, when people hug me, I feel recharged.

Q. And where do you think you have been wrong during this time?

A. In believing a lot in the individuals around me. In believing that I could make a revolution by governing, when revolutions are done by the people.

Q. Are you more skeptical than when you came in?

A. No, we have to make a revolution in Colombia.

Q. You leave it for those to come...

A. The people decide when it happens.

Q. During the campaign, a trafficker tried to put money into your political campaign. That money was received by the Catalan politician Xavier Vendrell, who was participating in your campaign. That could have destroyed your presidency.

A. A recently arrived foreigner doesn’t know what it’s like. You have to experience Colombia for the good and the bad. Vendrell was honest enough to tell us about it. That trafficker has been infiltrating campaigns for 38 years. I asked for the money to be returned and it was. I don’t know if anyone kept anything along the way. I asked for a video to be recorded of the money being returned and that video exists. I have seen it. At the time, I warned on Twitter that drug trafficking was trying to infiltrate my campaign and that no one other than the campaign manager could receive so much as a peso. They are trying to destroy me, just like they are my son.

Q. Your son is being charged with money laundering and unlawful enrichment for keeping campaign money.

A. It is the result of a deep family problem. He made a mistake, no doubt about it. But they have punished him beyond what he did wrong to see if he will go after his father. I said that I would never speak about my son during my time in government, but the government is almost over and I will talk about him.

Q. You are a head of state and a father. There is a conflict there.

A. Lula told me that, when I became president, the first thing I had to do was bring the family together. That was good advice that I didn’t pay much attention to. And that’s the first thing they try to do. My son was weak and that’s how they destroyed him. I can’t get involved. Because I would do the same thing as other presidents who have committed crimes, and with evidence [against them]. The law has to act and not overemphasize the crime. They are doing it to pit him against his father out of pure instinct for self-preservation. Vicky (Dávila, former director of Semana magazine and now a presidential candidate) is complicit in that. She had an agreement with the Prosecutor’s Office to bring all this out, because they thought it would destroy me.

Q. Since you’re talking about Vicky Dávila, do you think she’s in a position to win the elections in 2026?

A. Vicky wants to be [Argentine President Javier] Milei. I can’t get into how Peronism handled economic and social policy, but Argentine society got tired of them and voted for the worst option that could exist. When history repeats itself, a comedy is constructed. Vicky wants to be Milei, but for that to happen she needs my government to be a disaster. And I don’t see it. What I wouldn’t want is a Milei in Colombia. Unlike Argentina, a Colombian Milei would bring a lot of blood on his hands.

Q. And are you confident of finding a progressive candidate for 2026?

A. Not a candidate, but a front. There is no force that has a majority. A broad front is needed. I have names in mind, but I’ll let time tell.

Q. Let’s talk about the famous televised Cabinet meeting...

A. It turned out well.

Q. Some people thought it was chaotic. You reprimanded your ministers; they argued among themselves, one declared his love for you…

A. The idea of broadcasting it was mine. I took the decision an hour beforehand. I thought that the Colombian people deserved to know what it was like. I did it so that it could be seen, but I didn’t think it would have such a large audience; we swept away the other channels and a soccer match. It evidenced that there is a lack of information. And what happened there touches on the psychological. I understood that there are people who want to be in the [2026 presidential] campaign and that those people are not going to work hard on what I want. I don’t need people with dual agendas.

Q. During the Cabinet meeting you said that you were a revolutionary, but your government isn’t. Can you be a revolutionary while being head of state? Were you elected as a revolutionary candidate?

A. I am not sure that my role is to manage the capitalism of the capitalists. Because that has already failed. That system is dying and it is taking humanity with it, which is the biggest problem. The government must make changes that democratize the institutions. If an official does not have that in mind, he will not do it. That is where the difference comes in. They are people who did not live my life, nor should they have lived it, but the objective has to be to transform Colombia. We come from a quagmire of blood. If we do not achieve it, we will make Colombia a land of cemeteries.

Q. You seem dissatisfied with many members of your Cabinet.

A. We have not conquered power, we have conquered an administrative government cornered by other powers and by economic interests, including those of the press. The only way to free ourselves is with a mobilized people. If the right wins, which in Colombia means the extreme right, they know what to do: kill. And they don’t kill one person, they kill tens of thousands of people. They have no moral barrier.

Q. Your ministers criticize the fact that you have installed Armando Benedetti as your chief of staff. He has been involved in scandals (including his wife filing a complaint for gender violence that she later withdrew) and has judicial investigations pending against him. Why do you defend him? What qualities do you see in him?

A. That is “lawfare.” Benedetti comes from traditional politics and there are questions about his traditional politics, accusations from the feminist side. His wife defends him. I know there may be subordination, but a president cannot make decisions based on a “may,” but on facts. His son was on the verge of taking his own life after that barrage from the press. His own wife asks me not to destroy him. A woman knows a man; can a woman destroy him? Of course she can. A man can also destroy a woman. But not destroying people is giving them a second chance. The only legal process against him is for influence peddling. If I look at everything around me, everyone is peddling influence. Everyone is trying to influence me.

Q. In that same Cabinet meeting, Vice President Francia Márquez was also critical of Benedetti and Laura Sarabia.

A. The real fight is not about Benedetti, that is the excuse for not talking about other things. I laid out the level of what has been accomplished and it all ended with Benedetti. Why?

Q. What is your relationship with Francia Márquez?

A. We have been talking and it has gone well, let’s say. We’ll see how the relationship goes. She is vice president by popular vote. And it seems to me that, by strengthening her position as vice president, she can regain some of the leadership that we need.

Q. Health and labor reforms have to go through Congress. Are you trying to find new parliamentary majorities with Benedetti?

A. We will try, but this time not based on deception. I felt deceived.

Q. By whom?

A. An agreement is made with a political party, and then that party votes against it. That’s what happened to me with Claudia López [former mayor of Bogotá, former leader of the Green Party and possible presidential candidate]. She has deceived me about seven times. I am a deceived man.

Q. During this time you had Laura Sarabia as your number two, and now you have named her foreign affairs minister. What grade do you give her for her work?

A. She is a good organizer and a young woman. When you are young, you have to mature, and you have to know which wrong paths do not help you mature. Now, in the Foreign Ministry, she has to know what Colombia’s voice is in the world.

Q. There are people in your circle who insist that you should control yourself on X [formerly Twitter].

A. That’s why I’m president. Do you think I would have been president in the days of RCN or El Tiempo? But who says that?

Q. Your daughters, for example.

A. They get scared because sometimes I write some scary sentences, but I have never said anything I don’t mean.

Q. You had a confrontation with Donald Trump. At the end of January, you prevented the landing of planes carrying Colombian deportees because you considered that they were being transported in humiliating conditions. That decision opened a serious crisis with Trump, who ordered the imposition of 25% tariffs on Colombia. You did the same, but in less than 24 hours your government backed down and the United States issued a statement declaring itself the winner, which you retweeted. Did you lose that confrontation?

Q. I never backed down. I mean, that word you just said doesn’t exist.

A. But the government withdrew...

Q. I am the president of the government. And I have never allowed, nor will I allow, Colombians to enter in handcuffs. Now we bring them in on our planes and we have almost reached a thousand Colombian migrants who have been returned. The United States has not given us a peso for fuel. They are very stingy. But now they arrive without handcuffs, without shackles. You draw your own conclusions. Not a single Colombian comes in handcuffs here, if they are an innocent person.

Q. On the plane they are handcuffed, right?

A. No. Since the day the planes were returned, except for one that I didn’t know about, since that day, all planes arrive with free men, women and children, unless they have some legal issue.

Q. So you think you won the fight?

A. I don’t like those kinds of battles. That’s for the arrogant. I don’t care about that. Migrants are not criminals. And this government is working so that all the migrants that are being taken out of the United States or Europe, from Panama or Chile, if they are Colombians, arrive here without handcuffs. If they want us to receive them, it will be without handcuffs, without shackles, and with dignity.

Q. If we went back to that day, would you do the same thing again? Don’t you think that the communication on X was hasty?

Q. I don’t need to reflect much on my principles. And my fundamental principle — and a Spaniard [addressing the interviewer] should know this — is freedom.

A. From an international perspective, the impression is that Trump emerged stronger from this struggle.

Q. I don’t know how it came out, that doesn’t interest me. He said some things...

A. He issued a statement in which he said...

Q. ... that he was going to impose tariffs. And he hasn’t imposed any. If he imposes them, I’ll impose tariffs here. I think it would help Colombia a lot economically. He imposed visas; and I told my people, the United States is very boring. That doesn’t scare us. And if some were scared by the American officials, well, the first thing I told them was: forget it, the president’s order is, first and foremost, people, not goods.

Q. And did your ministers manage the crisis well?

A. Well, today no Colombian is entering in chains, or shackles, or anything similar.

Q. You have adopted a confrontational attitude...

A. No, I think they understand it. And Latin America should understand it. I see a Latin America that is more concerned about trade agreements than about its own people. And the first thing that must be established in an agreement is how people are treated. We cannot tell the United States to leave them there, that is their decision. But if they are going to deal with us, with me, it is as equals. There are no superior races, no matter how many weapons they have.

Q. Unlike you, most Latin American leaders choose silence and waiting. Are other leaders, such as the presidents of Brazil or Mexico, doing the right thing by avoiding face-to-face contact?

A. It will come sooner or later, unless Trump figures that America begins in Alaska and ends in Patagonia.

Q. What do you think of Trump?

A. I don’t know him. I’ve never seen him. They talk about this, they talk about that. I think he’s impulsive, more than me. I’m guided by principles. He’s impulsive and he doesn’t give a damn about Latin Americans; they’re not in his mental orbit. Look, he’s making a great effort to achieve peace between Ukraine and Russia, but he’s not looking for it between Palestine and Israel. Why? Because Russians and Ukrainians are white, Caucasian. And Palestinians and Israelis are not. We’re not Caucasian either. And Trump believes that we are inferior races. There are no races in the world.

Q. And what do you think of what he is doing in Ukraine?

A. Europe has been betrayed. Slavic Europe, which emerged from subordination to Soviet power, has been betrayed. [Ukrainian President Volodymyr] Zelenskiy has been betrayed and the Ukrainian people have been betrayed. And I feel sorry for the Ukrainian and Russian youth. They are brothers. They have the same history and they have killed each other by the thousands.

Q. How do you think the negotiations between the United States and Venezuela are going?

A. I cannot intervene in Venezuelan affairs. Venezuelans should remove Colombians, Europeans, and Americans from the solution they seek, and call for dialogue themselves, one that will necessarily lead to new elections, which must be absolutely free. That implies that no one should block them, because there are no free elections like that. It is blackmail. And the last elections were blackmail against the Venezuelan people.

Q. There was fraud in the elections.

A. There must be new elections, because the ones that took place were not free. You can use the word fraud, you can use the word blockade. Both have the same effect. Neither fraud nor the blockade allow free elections. The different forces in Venezuela must reach an agreement. I hope there are many new forces that look at their country with eyes to the future. Because we are very attached to a past that is already gone.

Q. Does that mean removing Nicolás Maduro and opposition leader María Corina Machado from the equation?

A. It’s simply a matter of life cycle, but I wouldn’t talk about people or names of political forces, but rather in terms of a project. For example, if the world is moving toward a world without oil after the Trump era.

Q. Do you consider Maduro as an equal, a counterpart?

A. Let’s be realistic: what I have on the other side of the border is Maduro and his army. And I have to talk to that reality. Let the Venezuelans solve their problem. Undoubtedly. And if we are important or valuable to help in that effort, then we are available.

Q. And returning to Colombia, do you consider your plan for total peace to be over?

A. No, it’s progressing well...

Q. But doesn’t the appointment of General Pedro Sánchez represent a change in military strategy?

A. Total peace does not mean putting down the guns.

Q. But it concerns security.

A. I announced that strategy from day one, and it has to do with my personal life. The April 19 Movement [a guerrilla group to which Petro belonged] was a political-military organization. It never abandoned the political line, because otherwise it would lead to degradation.

Q. It seems clear that there will be no agreement with the ELN.

A. Ours is a political-military strategy that the army is slowly copying, and the civilian government not so much. What does this mean in Catatumbo [a border region with Venezuela where the guerrillas are carrying out an extermination against their rivals and leaders of the civilian population]? Today’s ELN is an organization of drug traffickers. Its old leaders, who still exist, obey drug traffickers, people who grew up in violence, heirs to revenge, as Gabriel García Márquez said, and who carry that on from generation to generation. The massacre has been an instrument of terror in Colombia. In the past, those who were considered friends of the insurgency were killed, now they kill those who are believed to support other drug trafficking groups. And they do it to consolidate their social control over the drug trafficking routes. But it is still the same method. And that is what has happened in Catatumbo.

Q. And you are not afraid of a U.S. intervention in Venezuela?

A. I hope Trump doesn’t take that step.

Q. What measures would you take?

A. As long as I am president, my army will not be used for criminal actions in other countries.

Q. But it would be neutral.

A. Not in war. It would be a very serious mistake in the entire Caribbean. Haiti, Cuba, Venezuela... must truly breathe democracy, and democracy is that of their people, not that of foreigners. The ELN believes that it will have Venezuelan support and believes that if an invasion comes, they will be the revolutionary vanguard of Latin America and that this will be their moment. But they have a big flaw and that is that their financing is pure cocaine, and nobody makes a revolution with cocaine. They become paramilitaries. A few days ago they killed 63 peasants, accusing them of helping another group...

Q. So, total peace...

A. The essential basis for total peace is an agreement with the population. Easy to say, but difficult to do. For the peasants who grow coca leaves to stop doing so and for us to pay for it. But at the same time there have to be profitable crops. And at the same time, those crops have to be sold... To achieve this, it is necessary for this territory that has been excluded for 200 years to be at the center of public investment. The solution is a matter of political will, but it does not exist because half of the population still believes in the old political class. Our reforms are bogged down, they are not advancing. They are social reforms such as bringing healthcare to Catatumbo, giving a pension to the elderly peasant... If cocaine is legalized in the world, there will not be one more death in Colombia due to that market.

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