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<a class="gmail-domain gmail-reader-domain" href="https://resumen-english.org/2025/01/colombia-president-petros-letter-to-trump/">resumen-english.org</a>
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<h1 class="gmail-reader-title">Colombia President Petro’s Letter to Trump</h1>
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<p><em><a href="https://i0.wp.com/resumen-english.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/1-28-WhatsApp-Image-2025-01-27-at-2.04.06-PM.jpeg?ssl=1"><img src="https://i0.wp.com/resumen-english.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/1-28-WhatsApp-Image-2025-01-27-at-2.04.06-PM.jpeg?resize=240%2C300&ssl=1" alt="" width="240" height="300"></a><br></em></p><p><em>We
are running this dignified response to Trump from Colombian president
Gustavo Petro after he refused to allow 2 US military planes loaded with
Colombian nationals deported in shackles from landing in the Latin
American country. Trump in his anti immigrant crusade responded by
threatening Colombia with tariffs of 50% on all Colombian products
coming into the US if there wasn’t compliance. As of last night a
tentative agreement has been reached between the two countries and Petro
has sent Colombian planes to return them in a humane way. The corporate
media is saying that Petro backed down but if you read this you will
see a defiance against this anti immigrant revival of the Monroe
Doctrine. How much indignity are the countries of Latin America supposed
to endure?</em> –editor<span id="gmail-more-29254"></span></p>
<p>January 26, 2025</p>
<p><strong>“I don’t want slave drivers on Colombia’s side, we already had many and we freed ourselves”</strong></p>
<p>“Trump, I don’t really like traveling to the US, it’s a bit boring,
but I confess that there are meritorious things, I like going to the
black neighborhoods of Washington, there I saw an entire fight once in
the US capital between blacks and Latinos with barricades, which seemed
like bullshit to me, because they should unite.</p>
<p>“I confess that I like Walt Whitman and Paul Simon and Noam Chomsky and Miller.</p>
<p>“I confess that Sacco and Vanzetti, who have my blood, in the history
of the USA, are memorable and I follow them. They were assassinated for
being labor leaders with the electric chair, the fascists that are
inside the USA as well as inside my country.</p>
<p>“I don’t like your oil, Trump, you’re going to end the human race
through greed. Maybe one day, over a drink of whisky which I accept,
despite my gastritis, we can talk about this frankly, but it’s difficult
because you consider me an inferior race and I am not, nor is any
Colombian.</p>
<p>“So if you know anyone stubborn, it’s me, period. With your economic
strength and your arrogance you can try to stage a coup d’état like they
did with Allende. But I die in my law, I resisted torture and I resist
you. I don’t want slavers alongside Colombia, we’ve had enough of them
and we freed ourselves. What I want alongside Colombia are lovers of
freedom. If you can’t be with me, I’ll go elsewhere. Colombia is the
heart of the world and you didn’t understand that. This is the land of
yellow butterflies, of the beauty of Remedios, but also of the Aureliano
Buendía colonels, of whom I am one, perhaps the last.</p>
<p>“You will kill me, but I will survive in my people, which comes
before yours, in the Americas. We are the people of the winds, the
mountains, the Caribbean Sea and freedom.</p>
<p>“You don’t like our freedom, okay. I don’t shake hands with white
slavers. I shake the hands of the white libertarians who are the heirs
of Lincoln and of the black and white peasant boys of the USA, before
whose graves I have cried and prayed on a battlefield, wherever I may
end up, after climbing the mountains of the Italian Tuscan and after
saving myself from Covid.</p>
<p>“They are the USA and I kneel before them, before no one else.</p>
<p>“Kneel for me, Mr. President, and the Americas and humanity will respond.</p>
<p>“Colombia, now stop looking north, look at the world, our blood comes
from the blood of the Caliphate of Córdoba, the civilization at that
time, of the Latin Romans of the Mediterranean, the civilization of that
time, who founded the republic, the democracy in Athens; our blood has
the black resisters turned into slaves by you. In Colombia is the first
free territory in America, before Washington, in all of America, there I
take refuge in its African songs.</p>
<p>“My land is of gold and silver work existing in the time of the
Egyptian pharaohs, and of the first artists in the world in
Chiribiquete.</p>
<p>“You will never dominate us. The warrior who rode through our lands, shouting freedom and who is called Bolívar, is opposed.</p>
<p>“Our people are somewhat fearful, somewhat shy, they are naive and
kind, loving, but they will know how to win the Panama Canal, which you
took from us by violence. Two hundred heroes from all over Latin America
lie in Bocas del Toro, present-day Panama, formerly Colombia, whom you
murdered.</p>
<p>“I raise a flag and as Gaitán said, even if I am alone, it will
continue to fly with the Latin American dignity that is the dignity of
America, which your great-grandfather did not know, and mine did, Mr.
President immigrant in the USA.</p>
<p>“Your blockade does not frighten me; because Colombia, as well as
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 you its
sweetness.</p>
<p>“COLOMBIA AS OF TODAY OPENS ITSELF TO THE WHOLE WORLD, WITH OPEN ARMS, WE ARE BUILDERS OF FREEDOM, LIFE AND HUMANITY.</p>
<p>“I have been informed that you are charging a 50% tariff on our fruits of human labor to enter the US, I will do the same.</p>
<p>“May our people plant the corn that was discovered in Colombia and feed the world.”</p>
<p>Source:<a href="http://www.cubadebate.cu/especiales/2025/01/26/carta-de-petro-a-trump-en-x-no-quiero-esclavistas-al-lado-de-colombia-ya-tuvimos-muchos-y-nos-liberamos/"> Cubadebate</a> translation Resumen Latinoamericano – English</p>
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