This is CBS, I On the World. I'm John Batchel. The New World Report, Professor Avan Ellis, U.S. Army War College,

Bogota, the capital of Colombia. Colombia, the longstanding, solid partner with the U.S.

in dealing with drugs, the economy, the world wars in the 20th century.

Colombia has been a front and center of a friend of the U.S. all those decades.

And yet, the man now president of Colombia, there is no re-election possibility.

It's ruled out.

He's named Petro, Gustavo Petro. He is a man of many

faces. Right now, the puzzler is his face turned towards his neighbor, Venezuela, and the illegitimate

president of Venezuela, Nicolas Maduro. There is talk that Petro and Maduro are looking

to work together in some fashion. There is suspicion that working together likely involves the

expansion of their narco-terrorism connections. This is all talk, but in any event, it's not a positive,

given Petro's behavior these last months. There's talk of him being chemically dependent.

There's talk of him being extremely petulant, walking out on the legislature, cursing them all.

Maduro, on the other hand,

is clearly in league with adversaries of the United States and in general, the Americas. That would be Moscow, Beijing, Tehran, Beirut for Hezbollah. Even Pyongyang can be ringed into this.

That's enough, Professor.

This is trouble for Petro, and it seems that the response he's giving to the legislature,

having Kat called him for his speech of deception, is that he's making it worse by joining hands with Maduro what's he thinking where's this going professor can we guess well certainly john um so on the face of it uh this

agreement this memorandum of understanding uh for what would be a joint development zone on on the

border um is uh only marginally political, but certainly it is in

reality very political. And it raises, I think, a lot of concern about where things are going.

As you alluded to, John, in terms of the political orientation of both men, Petro being a former

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