Colombia, U.S. discuss drug trafficking, differences remain

Colombian President Gustavo Petro and U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Monday they discussed stepping up the interception of narcotics at sea and enhanced intelligence sharing on drug trafficking.
Leftist former rebel Petro, who hosted Blinken in Bogota, has derided the U.S.-led war on drugs as a failure and called for a new international approach.
In a news conference after their meeting, Petro said priorities were the interdiction of drugs before they are shipped out of Colombia and going after those who run the trade, who he said were likely to be not in Colombia’s jungles but in Bogota, Medellin, Miami and even New York.
Blinken said the two sides were “largely in sync” on the approach to drug trafficking and said Petro put “concrete ideas on the table” during the talks, although it was unclear if any agreement had been reached.