All about numbers
The Petro regime also continued to target criminal networks trafficking cocaine through arrests and seizures of shipments.
In November, Petro announced that the Colombian government had made the largest drug bust in a decade, with law enforcement seizing approximately 14 tons of cocaine.
Gloria Miranda was appointed by Petro in 2022 to head Colombia’s Illegal Crop Substitution Directorate, the agency that oversees voluntary eradication efforts.
She believes the Petro administration’s efforts are being misunderstood as ineffective.
“There is a theory that Colombia is doing nothing in the fight against drug trafficking,” she told Al Jazeera.
“But we have seized 276,000 kilograms (608,500 pounds) of cocaine, destroyed 18,000 laboratories, arrested 164,000 people, and replaced more than 30,000 hectares (approximately 74,100 acres) of illegal crops.”
But critics, including Mr. Trump, say Petro’s measures have not yet led to results. Coca cultivation and cocaine production remain at record levels.
Coca cultivation in Colombia increased by about 10 percent in 2023, according to the latest United Nations statistics. Potential cocaine production also jumped 53 percent to about 2,600 tonnes.
But Petro questions the accuracy of that figure. Last week, ahead of Petro’s meeting with Trump, Petro’s government announced it would no longer use UN statistics, claiming they relied on “opaque statistical methodology.”
Michael Weintraub, director of the Center for Security and Drug Studies (CESED) at the University of the Andes, told Al Jazeera that some of Petro’s backlash is political.
But he added that there were genuine grounds to question the UN’s methodology.
“There are so many assumptions built into the ‘potential cocaine production’ metric that it is very difficult to trust,” Weintraub said.
Predict the coca production from the selected plot, but yields vary by region and season. The United Nations itself acknowledges that its methods have limitations.
Despite these concerns, coca cultivation in Colombia has been on the rise for decades.
Analysts are focusing on one of the most important factors: demand. Consumption remains strong in North America and Europe, and new markets are emerging in Asia, Africa, and South America.
“Due to climate, soil and altitude, coca can only grow in a few places,” Weintraub says. “Colombia is therefore likely to remain a major producer for the foreseeable future.”
