Bogotá wants to use its harmony with the White House in the fight against climate change
He wants to establish himself as a regional leader capable of bringing democracy back to Venezuela and changing the country’s direction global fight against climate change And against drugsto deliver them differently than their predecessors. At the national level, he is seeking a series of negotiations with the various criminal gangs in order to achieve his election promise of “total peace”.
For all these purposes, Gustavo Petro would like the support of the United States, a key player in the southern hemisphere, although they have lost influence in favor of Russia and China in recent decades. Especially in relation to its Venezuelan neighbor.
“It’s a meeting of two different people who have something Similarities on the international agenda“Gustavo Petro told a group of journalists in Washington this Thursday about his meeting with Joe Biden. “There is no doubt that we have a common agenda when it comes to climate. Yesterday, for example, I met with the progressive caucus, we discussed these issues with them.” To add that they were dealing with “how to unite Colombian and Latin American progressivism around a new economy, which must be the one overcoming the climate crisis. ”
As for Venezuela “Zero Sanctions” It’s the wish repeated as a mantra in government circles when it comes to those whom Washington has imposed on the Chavista dictatorship. To achieve this, Petro entrusted all diplomatic efforts to the Colombian Ambassador to the United States, Luis Gilberto Murillo. A veteran politician, former Secretary of the Environment under Juan Manuel Santos, and adept at Capitol Hill, he spent eight months convincing US lawmakers of the merits of Petrista’s goals. And he already has a group of Democrats who support his proposals.
climate change
Petro’s other goal on his US tour, which kicked off Monday, is to convince the academy and like-minded politicians of his desire Completely eliminate the exploitation of coal, gas and oil to save the planet. At Stanford University he reiterated that the sum of capitalism and the need for energy satisfied by fossil fuels is at the root of the climate change afflicting the world and which he asserts is leading to the annihilation of humanity.
On drugs, along with the shared responsibility that Colombian leaders have always claimed, Petro endorses the policies of the Legalize drugs instead of criminalizing cultivation and production.
“These 50 years show an absolutely catastrophic record, both here in the United States and throughout Latin America democratic degradation is capital, the number of dead is in the millions, the number of prisoners is almost ten million,” said President Petro.
What he will not address on this occasion, despite what he defended in August last year shortly after taking office, is his intention to increase the number of extradition of drug dealers, widespread in previous administrations. “Drug traffickers who negotiate with the Colombian state with legal benefits and pledge to stop drug trafficking once and for all will not be extradited to the United States,” he told Bogotá. Rahul GuptaDirector of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy.
Petro used his stay in Washington to speak at the installation ceremony of the Permanent Council of the OAS (Organization of American States) and put controversial issues on the table. He called for changing the organization’s Democratic Charter “to strengthen human rights” and integrating Venezuela and Cuba.
And he showed once again his opposition to the arrest of Pedro Castillo, an extreme that has cost him harsh answers from his Peruvian counterpart Dina Boluarte in the face of interference in another country’s politics. He was also declared persona non grata by that nation’s parliament. “Isn’t a president imprisoned there without a court conviction and without his political rights, in other words contrary to the Democratic Charter?” he criticized again.
With all his movements, Petro continues to try to be recognized by the leadership of Latin America, at least the socialist countries, as Hugo Chávez did at the time at the cost of distributing huge amounts of petrodollars or the first and charismatic Lula da Silva.
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