Petro prods Trump over activist arrest ahead of Colombia runoff

Stephen Wicary, Bloomberg News on Jun 20, 2026

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Colombia’s outgoing leftist leader criticized Donald Trump a day before a runoff election in the Andean nation that pits his preferred successor against a security hardliner endorsed by the U.S. president.

Gustavo Petro called on Trump to reveal where a Colombian immigrant who criticized far-right candidate Abelardo de la Espriella is being held following his arrest earlier this week in Arizona. The man, a progressive activist known as Beto Coral, is the son of a police officer who was involved in the takedown of notorious cartel boss Pablo Escobar in the 1990s.

“Let him tell us whether we are true partners in the fight against drug trafficking, or whether they merely view us as an inferior people to be exploited, beaten down, and subjected to economic and political torture by the United States,” Petro said Saturday in a post on X, addressing his U.S. counterpart.

In another post, Petro described Coral as a “political prisoner” who was only detained because De la Espriella suggested his capture to U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio. The New York Times reported late Friday that Rubio issued a memo on the day of Coral’s arrest, declaring him eligible for deportation.

Allowing Coral to remain in the country “undermines US foreign policy interests in Colombia’s democratic processes and signals that foreign nationals may use US platforms to conduct politically motivated disinformation campaigns,” Rubio said in the memo, according to The New York Times.

The State Department doesn’t comment on alleged leaks of internal documents, a spokesperson said in an emailed response to questions. The detainee locator on the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement website shows Coral’s location as the Adams Country Correctional Center in Mississippi.

Petro’s remarks risk reigniting long-simmering tensions with Trump. Earlier this month, the leftist leader told the U.S. president to stop interfering in Colombia’s election. The pair had previously clashed repeatedly, though relations thawed after a face-to-face meeting in Washington in February.

Voters will choose between De la Espriella and Petro ally Iván Cepeda, a leftist senator, on Sunday. Trump said in a June 10 social media post that Colombia would enjoy “the total support and strength of the United States” if the conservative lawyer triumphs in the runoff.

(Yash Roy and Oscar Medina contributed to this report.)