As CELAC president, Colombia to push for regional integration

Colombia’s President Gustavo Petro vowed to use his one-year presidency of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) to promote regional integration.

The president and Foreign Minister Laura Sarabia traveled to the Honduran capital of Tegucigalpa to take over the presidency of the regional organization and meet with other leaders from the region.

Petro also announced meetings with China in May, the European Union in November in an attempt to diversify trade relations in response to the United States’ trade war against the rest of the world.

The president also said that he hopes to strengthen trade ties between CELAC member states.

Within Latin America and the Caribbean, Petro said he hoped to strengthen trade ties and negotiate the creation of an “American energy network, from Alaska to Patagonia” that prioritizes clean energy.

The president additionally said to seek the creation of a regional agency “for the production of essential medicines that liberates us, in times of pandemics, of a dependency that caused to many deaths in Latin America with COVID19.”

During a meeting of foreign ministers, Sarabia told her counterparts that the current geopolitical reality “demands of us to move from discourse to action.”

We have been talking about Latin American and Caribbean integration for more than a century. For better or for worse, the global geopolitical and commercial reality not only summons us, but demands that we move from discourse to action.

Foreign Minister Laura Sarabia

In an attempt to “guarantee Latin American integration” until 2027, the president said that he will work closely with Uruguay, which assumes the presidency of the CELAC next year.

This bilateral cooperation will continue after Uruguay assumes the presidency, said Petro.

Attempts to come up with a joint response to US President Donald Trump’s migration policy that were promoted by Honduras failed because of internal divisions at the CELAC.