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The Colombian leader opened a new embassy in Haiti, while talks have been focused on security and the fight against drug trafficking.

Colombian President Gustavo Petro has travelled to Haiti for the second time this year in a significant show of support, as spiralling gang violence continues to plague the Caribbean country.

Petro’s visit, which began Friday, has focused on talks on security, commerce, education, agriculture and the fight against drug trafficking, the Colombian government said.

Petro announced the opening of a Colombian embassy in the country’s capital of Port-au-Prince.

He has also pledged to help Haiti strengthen its security, offering to train Haitian officers. Haitian delegations have visited a state-owned arms manufacturing company in Colombia to learn about its defence capabilities.

The Colombian government shared a brief clip of Petro speaking at the new embassy: “The time has come to truly unite.”

Por fin, tenemos embajada en Haití.

¿Qué fuerzas impedían en la cancillería que hubiera una embajada en el país desde donde salió nuestra independencia?

¿Sería porque nuestra libertad salió fue de los esclavos negros que se liberaron a sí mismos? pic.twitter.com/tpdpmBptCz

— Gustavo Petro (@petrogustavo) July 19, 2025

Translation: Finally, we have an embassy in Haiti. What forces in the Foreign Ministry were preventing the establishment of an embassy in the country from which our independence originated? Could it be because our freedom came from the Black slaves who liberated themselves?

Petro landed in Port-au-Prince, where 90 percent of the capital is under gang control. He was accompanied by officials, including Colombian Defense Minister Pedro Sanchez.

During his visit, Petro met with Haiti’s Prime Minister Alix Didier Fils-Aime and its transitional presidential council, which is under pressure to hold general elections before February 2026.

The officials arrived less than a week after Haitian authorities killed four suspected drug traffickers and confiscated more than 1,000kg (2,300lb) of cocaine off the country’s north coast.

The seizure was unexpectedly large for Haiti’s National Police, which remains understaffed and underfunded as it works with Kenyan police leading a United Nations-backed mission to help quell gang violence.

While most of the violence is centred in Port-au-Prince, gangs have razed and seized control of a growing number of towns in Haiti’s central region.

At least 4,864 people have been killed from October to the end of June across Haiti, with hundreds of others kidnapped, raped and trafficked, according to a recent UN report.

Gang violence has also displaced 1.3 million people in recent years.

Petro previously visited Haiti in late January. Before his visit, Haitian officials invested some $3.8m to more than double the runway at the airport in the city of Jacmel, renovate the town and restore electricity to a population living in the dark for at least three years.

The two countries are additionally strengthening their ties as judges in Haiti continue to interrogate 17 former Colombian soldiers accused in the July 2021 killing of President Jovenel Moise.

The Rams did not draft an offensive lineman, but they have added a veteran just before the end of offseason workouts.

The Rams on Thursday agreed to terms with veteran free-agent offensive tackle D.J. Humphries, a person with knowledge of the situation said.

The person requested anonymity because the contract has not been signed.

Humphries, a 2015 first-round draft pick by the Arizona Cardinals, joins a line that includes starting left tackle Alaric Jackson, right tackle Rob Havenstein and swing tackle Warren McClendon Jr.

Humphries, 31, played eight seasons for the Cardinals before sustaining a major knee injury near the end of the 2023 season.

Last season, he played for the Kansas City Chiefs, but he sustained a hamstring injury in his first game back in Week 14 and played in only two regular-season games.

Foreign minister Wang Yi is meeting top diplomats from 11 Pacific nations in the Chinese city of Xiamen.

China is hosting a high-level meeting with 11 Pacific Island nations as it seeks to deepen ties and build what it calls a “closer” community with “a shared future” in the strategic region.

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi is chairing the meeting in the city of Xiamen on Wednesday.

The president of Kiribati, Taneti Maamau, and top diplomats from Niue, Tonga, Nauru, Micronesia, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, Papua New Guinea, Cook Islands, Fiji and Samoa are attending.

The two-day meeting is the third such gathering, but the first to happen in person in China.

Al Jazeera’s Katrina Yu, reporting from Beijing, said the diplomats are expected to discuss trade, infrastructure development, poverty alleviation, sustainability and climate change.

“For China, this is an opportunity to extend its influence and expand economic ties at a time when the United States is showing very little interest in this region, and we know increasingly that many of those countries are more aligned on China on things like investment, infrastructure, trade and even security assistance,” she said.

Global uncertainty

The meeting comes as United States President Donald Trump’s cuts to foreign aid and the threat of tariffs fuel global uncertainty. Analysts say this has left the door open for China to step in.

“This lack of certainty makes the US a very challenging partner to work with,” said Tess Newton at the Griffith Asia Institute. “Whereas other partners including China can offer, well you know we were here yesterday, we’re here today, and we expect to be here tomorrow.”

The Chinese foreign ministry, announcing the meeting last week, said the objective of the meeting was to “jointly build an even closer China-Pacific Island countries community with a shared future”.

Analysts say that for Beijing, that translates to greater economic aid, diplomatic engagement and the pursuit of a regional security pact.

China has already signed a security accord with the Solomon Islands in 2022, a year after deploying police to the ground in the capital, Honiara, following a series of riots there.

Beijing has also sent advisers to Vanuatu and Kiribati and wants to lock in a similar pact with other island nations.

“What China is trying to do … is to insert itself as a security player and in some cases through the angle of contributing to the individual security needs of Pacific countries such as policing,” said Mihai Sora, director of the Pacific Islands Program at the Lowy Institute in Australia.

The meeting in Xiamen is “an opportunity for China” to push its goals “in its own space, on its own turf and on its own terms,” he added.

Taiwan

The topic of Taiwan, the self-ruled island that China claims as its own and lies off the coast of Xiamen, is also expected to be discussed at this meeting.

China has been gradually whittling away at the number of countries in the Pacific that retain ties with Taiwan, and in January of last year, Nauru also switched recognition to Beijing.

Taiwan now has three remaining allies in the region – Marshall Islands, Palau and Tuvalu.

Al Jazeera’s Yu said the region is of strategic, military and diplomatic significance for China.

“If you look at the region, these countries are very small, their economies are small and only one of them has a population that exceeds one million. That is Papua New Guinea,” she said.

“But the region is strategically extremely important to Beijing because it’s home to crucial shipping lanes, deep sea cables, deep sea ports and potential mineral deposits underwater. Militarily, it could be strategically important, because if there could be any conflict in the future, this area could be important in terms of launching potential forward attacks on US territory, and also US ally Australia is very close by.”