Global Americans and the Caribbean Policy Consortium hosted an event to discuss the Summit of the Americas and its implications for the Caribbean and the hemisphere more generally.
On Sunday, Gustavo Petro won Colombia’s presidential election with 50.4 percent of the vote, defeating his opponent Rodolfo Hernández, who garnered 47.3 percent of votes.
Gustavo Petro won the presidency. However, it should be well understood that a significant portion of the country did not want him to become president. This result does not give the new president a clear mandate to execute their policy without at least trying to address concerns from the other side.
Now that the celebrations are over, Colombia’s new left-wing president faces a mountain of challenges. His biggest challenge will be delivering on his promises.
In their effort to assuage reluctant partners in the region, U.S. officials risk ignoring Latin American and Caribbean governments that have consistently supported U.S. interests and values.
The IX Summit of the Americas shows the way forward for conducting a resilient diplomacy in a divided world.
The personalization of policy is rarely wise, and in U.S. embassies, it risks shaping political analysis to reflect what diplomats think Washington wants to hear. In my view, this happened in Brazil.
Hernandez’s campaign’s narrative cannot be “change vs. continuity.” Instead, he must propose a model of change that is different from Petro’s.
My time as a U.S. diplomat in Cuba during the Obama thaw of 2015-17 showed me what was possible to achieve when diplomacy was given a chance to work.
