Gustavo Petro gave a speech today at the 78th UN Assembly. It focused on migration, climate change, Latin American countries’ debt with institutions such as the IMF, and drugs. In a statement loaded with hypocrisy, which could even be taken as blackmail or a threat, the Colombian president insinuated that migrants who go "north" do so because of climate change.
"Today there are tens of millions. Tomorrow, according to science, in the year 2070 there will be three billion fleeing from their beloved places because they will be uninhabitable," assured the leftist president. In the past, Petro has, among other things, belonged to the socialist guerrilla group M-19. "The exodus has grown this year, showing how the crisis of life is advancing," he added.
Even more worrying was his statement that these billions of migrants "will defy armies and change the earth." "People will go to where there is clean water left," he said.
The president of Colombia should be reminded that the huge migratory phenomenon that the United States is facing today at its southern border is not happening because Latin America is getting too hot because of pollution, but because regimes like Petro’s, as well as those of Venezuela and Cuba, have driven entire countries into misery with their socialist policies. As a consequence, people are migrating north in search of the opportunities offered by the capitalism Petro so despises.
On the other hand, it is extremely worrying that the president of the country that millions of migrants pass through on their way to the United States, affirms that these human caravans will defy armies. It seems that Petro wants to use migration to pressure the United States to forgive the debt that Latin American countries have with institutions such as the IMF. This is nothing new. Migration has long been a powerful phenomenon that has been weaponized to achieve different political objectives.
The United States is currently suffering one of the most serious migratory crises in its history. In view of the upcoming presidential elections, not even a government aligned with the left, such as Joe Biden's, will be pleased if a Latin American president insinuates that millions of migrants will defy armies if debt is not forgiven in order to aid with "climate change."
On top of that, Petro touched on another of the fundamental issues in the U.S.: drugs. The far-left president assured that "by arresting peasants, cannabis and coca leaf growers, they have moved on to drugs of death, fentanyl."
Petro further stated that fentanyl is the consequence of drug prohibition, insisting on his already well-known discourse that the "war on drugs" must end.
If Petro had any relevance among the American public, his words would go down quite poorly in the midst of a very serious crisis of drugs, crime and mental issued that derive from drug use. It would not be amusing for millions of parents struggling with their children's addictions to see a character like Petro describe marijuana and cocaine as harmless.
What Petro has done at the UN is the old leftist tactic of pushing agendas based on completely inaccurate diagnoses. Petro, like any Hispanic American, knows that migration to the United States is not due to climate change, but he is lying to push his debt forgiveness proposal. This is the same way he lies when he talks about drug trafficking in Latin America, a business intimately linked to socialism and narco-guerrillas, explaining it as a matter of humble plant growers. Petro defends drug trafficking because in Colombia, for decades, it has been the source of financing and power of the narco-socialists.
