After several hours of waiting, President Gustavo Petro appeared on the platform in Plaza Bolívar, amid the mobilization he called to collect signatures for his proposal for a National Constituent Assembly. In his speech, the president responded to the United States for including him on the Clinton list, which also included First Lady Verónica Alcocer and her son, Nicolás Petro.
Faced with this, Gustavo Petro stated emphatically that he will not “kneel.”
“If they manage to defeat this government, if they manage to bring this government to its knees, if they manage to silence my voice, if they manage to silence the flag that we have raised, I dare say, we will not kneel. We will not take a step back,” said Petro.
The president claimed that U.S. Congressman Carlos Giménez told him that"now I would understand why they put me on the Clinton list, that I had to change my position," but the president affirmed that "I have never given in to mafia-style proposals."
"For me, these kinds of attitudes are nothing more than the typical expression of the Colombian mafia sleeping in Miami, with their far-right allies in Florida, trying to bring a president to his knees because they won't let him do business in the United States, or perhaps anywhere in the world," the president insisted.
Meanwhile, President Petro defended himself against Trump's recent accusations that he is a"drug trafficking leader."
"And we're not going to respond to Trump in his own coin, as one newspaper says. I'm not like them. I've never behaved in a mafia-like manner, neither in Colombia nor internationally. I try to be frank; perhaps I'm a bit overbearing about that. Perhaps sometimes I should just keep quiet," Petro emphasized.
Finally, he rounded out his idea: “But if there is a genocide in the world, we must denounce it and never stand by it. And then there is a big difference between the president of Colombia, who was perhaps the first to raise his voice when the first bombs fell in Gaza and never shut up, and even applauded the latest agreement, which I hope will remain, which could determine a lasting peace in the Middle East. But I did not shut up. In Gaza there was and there is a genocide.”
