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US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has begun a week-long tour of Latin America, with the highest United States diplomat making a primary cease in Colombia to satisfy the nation’s newly sworn-in, left-wing president.
Throughout his journey to Colombia, Chile and Peru this week, Blinken additionally will attend a ministerial summit and maintain talks on regional challenges together with migration, drug trafficking, post-pandemic restoration, local weather change and the disaster in Venezuela.
“Heading to Colombia to construct on our very important, robust partnership,” the US secretary of state wrote on Twitter on Monday.
“The colourful ties between our individuals contact on nearly each side of our lives—our economies, safety, respect for human and labor rights, and efforts to construct a extra democratic and equitable hemisphere.”
Heading to Colombia to construct on our very important, robust partnership. The colourful ties between our individuals contact on nearly each side of our lives—our economies, safety, respect for human and labor rights, and efforts to construct a extra democratic and equitable hemisphere. pic.twitter.com/282F1xqSjZ
— Secretary Antony Blinken (@SecBlinken) October 3, 2022
Reporting from the Colombian capital Bogota, Al Jazeera’s Alessandro Rampietti stated “it’s telling” that Blinken’s first cease will likely be in Colombia, which elected its first left-wing President Gustavo Petro earlier this yr.
“The US desires to take care of relationship with this nation. Do not forget that Colombia and the US have had a strategic partnership on various points – clearly, an important one being safety and the ‘war on drugs‘ – for many years now,” Rampietti stated, including that the connection stays optimistic.
However the Colombian chief has clearly acknowledged that “the ‘struggle on medication’ has been a failure that has had main, dramatic penalties for Latin America” and he’s hoping that Washington will redistribute among the funds utilized in that battle in direction of native improvement, Rampietti added.
“This clearly clashes with the traditional imaginative and prescient that American governments have had.”
Colombia is a high cocaine producer and has traditionally confronted stress from the US to eradicate drug crops. Since taking workplace simply weeks in the past, Petro additionally has moved to re-establish diplomatic ties to the federal government of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.
“There’s a excessive stage of concern throughout the US authorities concerning the present president’s embrace of the brand new left in Latin America and the tacit rejection of defence cooperation with the US,” a defence official on the US Embassy in Colombia told Al Jazeera last week, simply days after a key border crossing alongside the Colombia-Venezuela border reopened.
The reopening was welcomed by communities on either side of the frontier, which in current months has seen lethal clashes between armed teams, in addition to crossings by Venezuelan migrants and refugees fleeing violence and dire socioeconomic situations of their nation.
US officers have acknowledged privately the necessity to present the US’s southern neighbours that they continue to be a coverage precedence regardless of the give attention to huge geopolitical points, such because the Russian war in Ukraine and tensions over Taiwan.
Blinken will purpose to solidify US partnerships within the face of China, which has been increasing its financial footprint throughout the resource-rich area.
“[The trip] displays the curiosity of the US to pay extra consideration to Latin America, and particularly South America on this case, by way of the deepening relationship there may be with China,” stated Guillermo Holzmann, a Chilean educational and political analyst.
Washington additionally has been pushing its allies throughout South and Central America to stem irregular migration amid a rise in arrivals on the US-Mexico border.
This week, Blinken’s second cease will likely be in Chile, the place voters earlier this yr elected the nation’s youngest-ever president, former scholar activist Gabriel Boric.
Boric, who campaigned on an formidable social justice platform, has seen his approval scores drop, and final month he reshuffled his cupboard after a brand new structure he championed failed to pass in a nationwide referendum.
On Thursday, Blinken will journey to Peru’s capital Lima to attend a ministerial assembly of the Group of American States (OAS) Common Meeting, the place Washington will push to go a brand new decision in opposition to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
He can even meet with left-wing President Pedro Castillo, who continues to fight for his political survival amid a string of impeachment makes an attempt and authorities shake-ups.
The pair will talk about “rising regional safety, strengthening democratic governance, defending the setting, and selling inclusive financial improvement”, the US State Division stated in an announcement.
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