40

Trump, I don't really like travelling to the US. It's a bit boring, but I confess that there are some commendable things. I like going to the Black neighborhoods of Washington, where I saw a fight in the US capital between Blacks and Latinos with barricades, which seemed like nonsense to me, because they should join together.

I confess that I like Walt Whitman and Paul Simon and Noam Chomsky and Miller.

I confess that Sacco and Vanzetti, who have my blood, are memorable in the history of the USA and I follow them. They were murdered by labor leaders in the electric chair, by the fascists who are within the USA as well as within my country.

I don't like your oil, Trump. It's going to wipe out the human species because of greed. Maybe one day, with a glass of whiskey that I accept, despite my gastritis, we can talk frankly about this, but it's difficult because you consider me part of an inferior race and I'm not, nor is any Colombian.

So, if you know someone who is stubborn, that's me, period. You can try to carry out a coup with your economic strength and your arrogance, like they did with Allende. But I will die true to my principles, I resisted torture and I resist you. I don't want slavers next in Colombia, we already had many and we freed ourselves. What I want next in Colombia are lovers of freedom. If you can't join me, I'll go elsewhere. Colombia is the heart of the world, and you didn't understand that, this is the land of the yellow butterflies, of the beauty of Remedios, but also of the colonels like Aureliano Buendía, of which I am one, perhaps the last.

You will kill me, but I will survive in my people, which lives, before yours, in the Americas. We are peoples of the winds, the mountains, the Caribbean Sea and of freedom.

You don't like our freedom, okay. I don't shake hands with White slavers. I shake hands with the White libertarian heirs of Lincoln and the Black and White farm boys of the USA, at whose graves I cried and prayed on a battlefield, which I reached after walking the mountains of Italian Tuscany and after being saved from Covid.

They are the United States, and before them I kneel, before no one else.

Overthrow me, Mr. President, and the Americas and humanity will respond.

Colombia now stops looking north, it looks at the world. Our blood comes from the blood of the Caliphate of Cordoba, the civilization of that time, of the Roman Latins of the Mediterranean, the civilization of that time, who founded the republic, democracy in Athens; our blood comes from the Black resistance fighters turned into slaves by you. Colombia is the first free territory of America, before Washington, [before] of all America, and I take refuge in its African songs.

My land is made up of goldsmiths who worked in the time of the Egyptian pharaohs and of the first artists in the world in Chiribiquete.

You will never rule us. You're opposed to the warrior who rode our lands, shouting freedom, whose name is (Simon) Bolívar.

Our people are somewhat fearful, somewhat timid, they are naive and kind, loving, but they will know how to win the Panama Canal, which you took from us with violence. Two hundred heroes from all of Latin America lie in Bocas del Toro, today's Panama, formerly Colombia, which you murdered.

I raise a flag and as (Jorge Eliecer) Gaitán said, even if it remains alone, it will continue to be raised with the Latin American dignity that is the dignity of America, which your great-grandfather did not know, and mine did, Mr. President, an immigrant in the USA.

Your blockade does not scare me, because Colombia, besides being the country of beauty, is the heart of the world. I know that you love beauty as I do, do not disrespect it and it will give its sweetness to you.

FROM TODAY ON, COLOMBIA IS OPEN TO THE ENTIRE WORLD, WITH OPEN ARMS, WE ARE BUILDERS OF FREEDOM, LIFE AND HUMANITY.

I am informed that you impose a 50% tariff on the fruits of our human labor to enter the United States, and I do the same.

Let our people plant corn that was discovered in Colombia and feed the world.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[-] zephorah@lemm.ee 4 points 4 days ago

I cannot keep up with everything so I’ve made my focus of Trump travesty health care, mental and physical.

What happened here? The cliff notes version.

I already stocked up with a years supply of coffee beans in anticipation of Trump. Even so. What’s the root of this dispute?

[-] AlbigensianGhoul@lemmygrad.ml 8 points 3 days ago

Basically Trump has started the mass deportations using military personnel and the foreign citizens were treated like sub-human prisoners even within their own countries' borders in cases like Brazil. You can read this with Google translate, but just browse the images in this Brazilian news article and that'll be enough.

Petro was among the leaders who refused to receive the citizens in such degrading circumstances, was sanctioned for it, and then did this statement as a response. This forced diplomatic talks and now the Colombian citizens will be brought with a presidential Colombian plane rather than a USA military one and the sanctions put on hold.

There'll still be the baseline 25% Trump tariffs, but not the increased 50% of the sanctions.

Critical section from TeleSur

“We have overcome the impasse with the U.S. government. We will continue to welcome Colombian men and women returning as deportees, guaranteeing them dignified conditions as citizens with rights,” said Colombia’s Foreign Minister Luis Gilberto Murillo.

“The Colombian government has made the presidential plane available to facilitate the return of the nationals who were scheduled to arrive in the morning in the country on deportation flights,” he added, putting an end to the exchange of messages between Trump and Colombian President Gustavo Petro on social media throughout Sunday.

The diplomatic tension arose after Petro refused to accept two military planes carrying deported Colombians from the United States. Following his decision not to authorize the landing of the military planes, Trump announced he would impose 25% tariffs on Colombian products and revoke the visas of Colombian government officials. In response, Petro promised reciprocal measures.

Despite the agreement reached, the White House stated that the possibility of imposing tariffs and sanctions remains “on hold unless Colombia fails to comply with the agreement.” Trump argued that Petro’s refusal endangered “the national and public security of the United States.”

Source, emphasis mine.

[-] zephorah@lemm.ee 5 points 3 days ago

Grocery prices are abysmal. Trumps plan to fix that problem is to raise the price of coffee by 25%.

load more comments (9 replies)
this post was submitted on 27 Jan 2025
40 points (100.0% liked)

World News

2392 readers
128 users here now

founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS