Colombia’s President Ivon Duque believes that the missing element in the Western Hemisphere’s reaction to the multilateralism pandemic and that populism is an accelerator of the spread of the virus. “In truth, the lesson after COVID-19 is that we needed more multilateralism to deal with this crisis,” Duke said in an exclusive interview with The Hill.
“Our first conviction is that we will make scientific decisions,” Duke added.
Colombia has been hit hard by the crisis, turning a year that began with an expected 4% GDP expansion into an economic crisis, with government spending expanding debt to finance the pandemic closure. But so far, Colombia has held out the typhoon more than its neighbors, its 12.42 COVID-19 deaths consisting of 100,000 inhabitants place it between Germany and Portugal in global terms, far below Mexico with 29.78 deaths, Brazil with 36.61 and the United States with 42.29 deaths consisting of 100,000 inhabitants, according to Johns Hopkins.
The 43-year-old lawyer, who has spent most of his professional career in Washington, DKD, said COVID showed the government the strength of a clinical and multilateral technique. He described the resolve to freeze a booming economy as “perhaps the most complicated resolution we’ve ever taken.” “But what I never doubted was that at the time, we had to do everything, everything, first to stop the exponential spread of the virus, secondly to protect fitness systems, thirdly to protect lives and, clearly, to begin, on the basis of science, a reactivation procedure,” Duke said.
“First of all, we’re in the middle of an election paperwork in america, so it’s time for letters, speeches for comments, and I get that,” he said. But then Duque followed the attitude of a lawyer, express board clauses in the agreement that fulfilled his tenure in 24 months in power, and that Santos had not complexed in 20 months since the signing of the agreements. Duque noted that he had reported the killings in his inaugural confrontation and had worked to combat them, adding that FARC leaders had no respectable agreements to report their links to drug cartels and reveal the locations of the murdered abduction victims. Duque hopes Colombia will remain America’s closest friend in the region, regardless of the political back and forth of both countries. And despite the break between his management and that of his predecessor, Duque followed the country’s pre-existing commitment to multilateralism and regional diplomacy. Colombia is expected to become president of the Pacific Alliance this year, an agreement of Colombia, Chile, Peru and Mexico, and has recently become a full member of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). “I said that today’s global, instead of dividing between left and right, I think today’s global has demagogues and pedagogues,” Duke said. “Demagogues occasionally, best friend, end up taking their country to bread today, to tomorrow’s hunger. Those of us who need to be educators will have to be able to convey to the public the demanding situations we face, the fact and how we will achieve it,” he added.
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