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Nicolas Petro, son of Colombian President Gustavo Petro
Fathers and sons: Colombia scandal edition
The president’s son has been arrested and charged with money laundering! No, not Hunter Biden. It’s 36-year-old Nicolás Petro, son of Colombian President Gustavo Petro.
The charges, unsealed this week, stem from allegations by the younger Petro’s ex-wife, who says she helped him amass millions in bribes while he was serving as a local politician. In one instance, she says, they tricked a drug kingpin into believing he was giving them money to support the elder Petro’s 2022 presidential campaign. Petro Jr denies all the charges, which carry decades-long prison terms.
Will this hurt his dad? Gustavo Petro, a left-wing former guerilla and capital-city mayor who was swept to power last August on a platform of radical social change, has had a rough go of it so far. He has lost key allies and had to reshuffle his government once already. His approval ratings are mired in the low-30s, down by nearly half since he took office, and plans to expand healthcare, workers' protections, and pensions are largely stalled in Congress.
While he has reached a ceasefire with Colombia’s largest remaining guerilla group, cocaine production is soaring and cartels seem to be growing more powerful, not less.To top it all off, a separate scandal involving allegations of wiretapping and drug money continues to swirl around him.
Of his son’s legal troubles, Petro said he will not intervene and that he hopes young Nicolás will “reflect on his mistakes.” Tough love indeed, and that will play well in a country used to elites bailing their kids out of trouble. But as the investigations deepen, keep an eye on whether his son’s mistakes end up reflecting on Petro himself.
See Ian Bremmer’s interview with Gustavo Petro from last fall here.
Colombian President Gustavo Petro.
Is Colombia’s Petro showing his true colors?
Colombia’s leftist President Gustavo Petro sacked much of his cabinet earlier this week in a move that suggests the headstrong former guerrilla might be moving in a more confrontational direction after just eight months in office.
Evidently frustrated by opposition to his sweeping health care reform plans, Petro booted several centrist parties from his government, removing Finance Minister José Antonio Ocampo, whom investors had seen as the key guardian of Colombia’s fiscal stability.
Rewind: When Petro was elected as the country’s first left-wing president last August, he worked hard to reassure his critics that although he’d been given a mandate to shake up an elite-dominated system, he was also a consensus-minded leader. But with his approval ratings sagging and his reform agenda stalled, is Petro betting on a more radical approach now?
The biggest risk is that Petro can, if he chooses, call millions into the streets to put pressure on legislators. This was a trick he pulled back when he was mayor of the capital, Bogotá. But in a country as deeply polarized as Colombia, things could get ugly fast. Buckle up.
Check out GZERO Media's exclusive interview with President Petro here.Colombia hosts meeting on Venezuelan political crisis.
Colombia convenes new Venezuela summit
Representatives from about 20 countries, including the US, gathered in Bogotá on Tuesday as part of the Colombian government’s push to restart talks between Venezuelan strongman Nicolás Maduro and the fractious opposition. Neither side has sent representatives, but both say they support the event.
How’d we get here? Several years ago, Maduro, who had mismanaged the economy and rigged his own re-election, was on the ropes. As popular protests swelled, millions fled his country, and fresh US sanctions choked off crucial revenues. But opposition infighting and global demand for oil — Venezuela has more of it than anyone else — kept him firmly in power.
Now, with elections approaching next year, the opposition – along with the US, EU, and most of the region – wants the powerful but unpopular Maduro to guarantee a level playing field. He, however, wants the US to ease Trump-era sanctions. Maduro has shown he can hang on pretty well under sanctions, but he may not want to risk a rerun of the 2018 protests over an overtly unfair vote.
A previous round of talks in Mexico stalled late last year, but Colombia’s left-wing President Gustavo Petro is hoping that his good relations with neighboring Caracas will enable him to broker a new deal where others have failed.
Members of parliament hold placards after the result of the vote on the first motion of no-confidence against the French government at the National Assembly in Paris, France, March 20, 2023.
What We’re Watching: Slim win for Macron, protests in South Africa, Trump’s legal woes, Colombia peace collapsing?
Macron’s narrow escape
It came down to the wire, but Emmanuel Macron’s government narrowly survived a no-confidence vote in France’s National Assembly on Monday, with 278 voting to topple the government, nine votes shy of the threshold needed to pass.
Quick recap: The motion was triggered after Macron used a constitutional provision last week -- bypassing a vote in the lower house -- to pass a controversial pension reform despite weeks of protests (more on that here).
Not only do 70% of French adults abhor Macron’s plan to raise the retirement age to 64 from 62 by 2030 – which he says is necessary to plug the growing debt hole – but the French electorate, which has long had a libertarian streak, is also furious that the government used what it says is an anti-democratic loophole to pass the measure.
Macron’s troubles are only just beginning. Hundreds were arrested in Paris over the weekend and on Monday as anti-government protests turned violent and smelly. Unions have called for nationwide demonstrations and strikes in a bid to pressure the government to roll back the measures (which will never happen).
Prime Minister Élizabeth Borne will likely take the fall and resign. Still, Macron, already unpopular before this debacle, will emerge a diminished political figure. After previously saying he understood that people were “tired of reforms which come from above,” it will be very hard for the ideological chameleon to regain the trust of vast swathes of the population.
South Africa’s day of demonstrations
Amid rolling blackouts and a slumping economy, the Marxist-linked Economic Freedom Fighters Party called for a national day of protests Monday, putting law enforcement on high alert.
The EFF, the country’s third-largest party led by longtime leader Julius Malema, is largely backed by poor Black South Africans, many of whom live in townships, as well as younger voters who feel they haven't benefited from the ruling African National Congress Party’s tenure in the post-apartheid era. Indeed, around one-third of South Africans are out of work and the economy is slated to grow by just 0.3% in 2023, down from 2.5% in 2022.
President Cyril Ramaphosa mobilized more than 3,000 troops nationwide in anticipation of mass protests. But turnout was lower than expected, prompting Malema to claim that the government was blocking buses transporting protesters.
The EFF “will still claim the wall-to-wall media coverage around the protests as a victory,” says Ziyanda Sturrman, a South Africa expert at Eurasia Group.
None of this is good news for Ramaphosa, who, after a series of political scandals, looks set to lose his parliamentary majority in next year’s general election. Still, Stuurman notes that if the ANC falls just below the 50% threshold, several small parties have already put their hands up to join an ANC-led coalition.
Trump vs. prosecutors
Former US President Donald Trump faces possible legal challenges on multiple fronts. The state of New York could charge him with fraud for alleged hush money payments to a porn star. The Justice Department could charge him with many suspected crimes related to efforts to overthrow the result of the 2020 election as well as the misuse of hundreds of classified documents recovered by the FBI from his Florida home. Prosecutors in Georgia could charge him with election fraud as part of his alleged effort to overturn that state’s 2020 election result.
If Trump is indicted, he’ll likely present himself for charges, while also calling for protests. He would then be released on bond pending trial, and it’s unlikely that any trial in any of these potential cases would take place in 2023.
Trump would continue his campaign for the Republican presidential nomination. There’s nothing in the US Constitution to prevent him from being elected president. His fate would remain with voters. If elected, his presidency would begin in court. In theory, a president could pardon himself for federal crimes. That would have to be tested. But no president can pardon state-level crimes, like those he might be charged with in New York and Georgia. In short, prosecutors and Trump may be about to steer American politics into uncharted waters.
Colombia: Is Petro’s “total peace” going to pieces?
Colombia’s President Gustavo Petro took office last year pledging to reach a negotiated “total peace” with the country’s various armed and criminal groups. But on Monday that strategy took a big hit when he was forced to suspend a three-month-old ceasefire with the fearsome Clan del Golfo (Gulf Clan), the Andean region’s most powerful narco-trafficking outfit. The Clan had allegedly attacked an aqueduct and opened fire on police officers.
The move puts Petro in a tough spot — ramping up military action risks escalating a conflict he was elected in part to end peacefully. But allowing cartels to run riot isn’t an option either.
The setback comes amid a broader season of discontent for Petro: a corruption investigation of his son, the departure of several key coalition ministers, and an approval rating that is net-negative barely six months since he took office.
Petro, a former guerilla who is the country’s first left-wing president, has made an effort to build bridges across the political spectrum so far. But his critics worry that if the going gets tougher, he might resort to a more populist style that could be explosive in a country as polarized as Colombia.
Protestors gather outside the U.S. Supreme Court ahead of the oral arguments in two cases that challenge President Joe Biden's $400 billion student loan forgiveness plan.
What We’re Watching: SCOTUS mulling student debt relief, Blinken visiting Central Asia, Biden's partial TikTok ban, Petro’s post-honeymoon phase
US Supreme Court weighs student loan forgiveness
The US Supreme Court began hearing arguments on Tuesday in a pair of cases that will test the limitations of presidential power and could derail Joe Biden’s plan to forgive $400 billion in student debt. Biden campaigned on debt relief, promising to help families burdened by the pandemic-fueled economic crisis. But now the court will decide whether Biden has the authority to forgive student loans. The White House cites a 2003 law aimed at alleviating hardship suffered by federal student loan recipients following a national emergency, but opponents say debt relief should require congressional approval. Biden hopes to fulfill his campaign promise ahead of next year’s presidential race, and millions of millennials and Gen-Z scholars – many of whom could see up to $20,000 of their federal student loan debt wiped away – will be waiting with bated breath. A decision will drop before the court adjourns in June, but so far, justices in the conservative majority seem critical of Biden’s move.
Blinken’s trip to Central Asia
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Tuesday met with foreign ministers from five former Soviet Republics: Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan. Blinken wants to signal solidarity with Russia’s neighbors and try to ensure that trade routes in these countries are not used by Russia to evade Western sanctions. The 'Stans are happy for the support because they have all felt pressure from Moscow to form closer ties with Russia. In particular, Putin has pressed Kazakhstan’s President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, without success, to support Russia’s war in Ukraine. Tokayev has a reason for concern: Putin has cited the defense of persecuted ethnic Russians in Ukraine as a motive for his war, and Kazakhstan is home to the second-largest population of ethnic Russians among former Soviet Republics. These states, faced with varying degrees of economic trouble exacerbated by the food and fuel inflation that followed the invasion of Ukraine, could also use some direct US help. During the visit, Blinken announced $25 million of new funding to support economic growth in the region in addition to $25 million the Biden administration had already pledged.
Will China respond to Biden’s government TikTok ban?
China hit back at the US on Tuesday for joining the European Union in banning TikTok from government devices. China’s foreign ministry said that Washington’s move – which gives government employees 30 days to remove the social app from their phones – is an abuse of “state power.” Canada, for its part, followed up with a similar ban. These developments come amid fears that the app, owned by Chinese company ByteDance but based in Singapore, is being used by China’s Communist Party to gather government data. Will Beijing retaliate? Anna Ashton, a China expert at Eurasia Group, thinks any significant reprisal by Beijing for a partial or even a full TikTok ban in the US is unlikely. “It isn’t clear that Beijing will bear any significant loss if TikTok stops operating in the United States, nor is it clear that there would be any real gain in lashing out over such a ban,” she says, noting that there was no clear retaliation from Beijing when India banned TikTok a few years back. What’s more, Ashton says, “TikTok is a private company, and social media companies (much like online sales platforms) are not strategic priorities in China’s technological development plans.” Meanwhile, Congress will proceed on Wednesday to further a bill that would allow the Biden administration to ban TikTok for America’s 100 million users. Being tough on China is a rare bipartisan policy issue. Still, it’s unclear whether the Democratic-controlled Senate will back the GOP-sponsored legislation.
First cabinet reshuffle in Petro’s Colombia
A clash over healthcare and education reforms has provoked the first reshuffle of Colombian President Gustavo Petro’s government since he took power last August. The left-wing leader’s plans to expand the government’s role in both sectors drew a public backlash from several of his more centrist cabinet officials. Among them was Education Minister Alejandro Gaviria, whom Petro promptly sacked along with the ministers of sport and culture. Petro – a notoriously headstrong former guerilla – was elected on a change platform, but at the outset of his term, he brought in centrist allies to quell fears that he’d govern as a wild-eyed revolutionary. Now, as his honeymoon period melts away, is this reshuffle simply a necessary move to preserve policy unity, or is he starting to show his true colors?Then and Now: Colombian peace talks, Sri Lankans' anger, Macron's challenges
Three months ago: Colombia government, ELN resume peace talks
One of Gustavo Petro’s first orders of business after becoming Colombia’s president in Aug. 2022 was to bring “total peace” to the country. As a result, three months ago, his leftist government announced it was resuming talks with the National Liberation Army, a guerilla group known as ELN, for the first time since 2019. The talks were hailed as a big deal considering that the 2,400-member strong force has been at war with the government since the 1960s. The ELN was the largest guerrilla group not to sign onto a historic 2016 peace deal between the government and guerilla groups, including the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia. Since then, violence by the ELN and other armed groups financing their operations through drug trafficking and illegal mining has continued to terrorize Colombians, particularly in rural areas. Last week, however, Petro, a former guerilla, announced a breakthrough, saying his government had reached a peace agreement with the ELN for a six-month ceasefire. But the ELN came out shortly after and said no deal had been reached, stating that “a unilateral government decree cannot be accepted as an agreement.” Petro, for his part, has not responded to the group’s denial. Still, communication is a good thing, and the two sides say they will continue talks this month in Mexico. Petro discussed these issues, and more, in an interview with GZERO Media.
Six months ago: Sri Lankans’ wrath boils over
The global summer of discontent – prompted partly by post-pandemic economic turmoil and aggravated by the war in Ukraine – was on full display in Sri Lanka in July, where, as we wrote here, long-simmering public wrath directed at Sri Lanka’s leader over the country’s economic collapse finally boiled over. After months of blackouts and food scarcity that forced Colombo to default on its external debt for the first time in May 2022, thousands of Sri Lankans forced the ouster of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa before storming his residence. (The photos of them swimming in the president's pool were quite something.) While Sri Lanka’s economic path remains precarious – Colombo was forced last year to limit imports to essentials – there has been some progress. In September, President Ranil Wickremesinghe reached a preliminary deal with the International Monetary Fund for a $2.9 billion bailout package after Colombo made some reforms earlier in the year, including floating the rupee. But the IMF won’t follow through until Sri Lanka restructures the billions of dollars in debt owed to three main creditors: India, China, and Japan. Talks between Colombo and all three economic powerhouses remain ongoing, but a range of issues have prevented a deal from being reached before the end of 2022, which Colombo had been aiming for.
Nine months ago: No cakewalk for Emmanuel Macron
Back in April, we reported on French incumbent Emmanuel Macron’s electoral successes – he not only won a second term as president, a mean feat in French politics, but he also kept the country’s increasingly influential anti-establishment forces, on the right and left, at bay. Still, we noted that Macron’s second term would be anything but a cakewalk, with him facing a host of thorny issues at home and abroad. Fast forward nine months and it hasn’t been smooth sailing for Macron – and things are bound to get even dicier in the weeks ahead. In parliamentary elections back in June, Macron’s Ensemble Together bloc finished 44 seats short of a majority in the National Assembly, crippling the president’s ability to easily pass legislation and giving birth to what one French publication described as a “stillborn five-year term.”
The difficulty in getting his legislative agenda through will likely to come to a head soon as Macron is pushing ahead this week with his pension reform plan, which would raise the retirement age by three years to 65 – a move unpopular with roughly 70% of French voters. While Macron can find ways to get this through parliament using emergency powers, the government is already bracing for mass public outrage comparable to strikes in 2019 against the same proposal that paralyzed the country. Still, Macron says he will move ahead with pension reform as it is central to his pledge to reduce France’s debt-to-GDP ratio. Moreover, while Paris has spent billions of dollars to subsidize electricity bills, the cap on power prices rose this month from 4% to 15%, which is bound to hurt consumers at a time when food inflation remains sky-high.
Brazil's President Jair Bolsonaro gives a press statement in Brasilia.
What We’re Watching: Bolsonaro's broken silence, Iranian attack plans, Bibi’s return, Colombia & Venezuela’s lunch date
Bolsonaro lets his friend say the hard part
In a prepared and combative statement lasting less than two minutes, Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro on Tuesday did not concede the election he lost on Sunday. He also failed to congratulate — or even mention — his opponent, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. Instead, he welcomed ongoing nationwide protests by pro-Bolsonaro truckers, saying they’re the result of a “feeling of indignation and injustice about how the elections were conducted.” He cast himself as a person who plays by the constitutional rules and said he was proud to have stood for freedom of markets, religion, and expression. “The right has truly risen in Brazil,” he said. After Bolsonaro walked off without taking questions, one of his closest allies stepped up to the podium to say Bolsonaro had in fact authorized him to begin the presidential transition. As that legal and logistical process gets underway, we are watching closely to see how far Bolsonaro pushes the popular protests to try to gain political leverage. Bolsonaro lost to former President Lula by the narrowest electoral margin in Brazil’s modern history. Buckle up.
Will Iran attack Saudi Arabia?
Tehran is reportedly preparing imminent attacks on targets in Saudi Arabia and northern Iraq that could put the US military at risk. Based on shared Saudi intelligence, the news has put the Pentagon on “high alert.” The US has 10 military bases and about 3,000 troops in Saudi Arabia and roughly 2,500 troops in Iraq. Riyadh says the plot is an attempt by the Islamic Republic to distract from the combustible situation at home, where nationwide protests – bordering on revolution – over the in-custody death of Mahsa Amini, 22, have consumed the country for more than six weeks. In recent weeks, Tehran has also bombarded Kurdish towns in northern Iraq that it blames for fomenting unrest in Iran (Amini was Kurdish). While many called for President Joe Biden to sever ties with Saudi leader Mohammed bin Salman after Riyadh recently snubbed the US by cutting OPEC+’s daily oil production, this episode reveals that – for better or worse – Washington and Riyadh’s national security interests remain intertwined.
Bibi is almost back
Israelis went to the polls on Tuesday for the fifth time in under four years, and the results look very good for … former Prime Minister Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu. With 85% of the vote counted, Bibi’s Likud Party has won the most seats – 31 – while his right-wing allies also appear to have the numbers to help him pass the 61-seat threshold (out of 120) needed to form a government in the Knesset, Israel’s parliament. Interestingly, voter turnout was at a two-decade high. Far-right parties including the anti-Arab, anti-LGBTQ Religious Zionism bloc, as well as several ultra-Orthodox parties, reaped solid results and will be Bibi’s coalition partners. Still, there are about 500,000 votes from soldiers, prisoners and diplomats that are yet to be counted, but soldiers' votes traditionally skew right. Longtime leader and divisive figure Bibi Netanyahu appears to be on the cusp of victory.
Colombia-Venezuela lunch date
Colombia’s recently elected left-wing President Gustavo Petro traveled to Caracas on Tuesday for a lunch date with Venezuelan strongman Nicolás Maduro. Relations between Venezuela and Colombia fell apart in 2019 during mass protests against Maduro’s regime and clashes along their shared border. But since Petro took office in August, tensions have eased and the borders have reopened. The two leaders planned to discuss the further easing of tensions, joint approaches to protecting the Amazon, and the surprising idea of reintegrating Venezuela — which the UN recently accused of crimes against humanity — into regional human rights bodies. At the same time, Petro wants Venezuela to act as a guarantor for fresh peace talks with the holdout Colombian rebels of the ELN. The meeting between Washington’s closest South American ally, Colombia, and its biggest bete noire, Venezuela, comes as the US is exploring ways to ease oil sanctions on the Venezuelan petro-state in exchange for progress towards fair elections. See our recent interview with Petro here.Emergency workers during an emergency response drill to simulate the aftermath of a dirty bomb explosion outside Madrid.
What We’re Watching: Fact vs. fiction in Ukraine, Petro vs. Big Oil in Colombia
Information wars in Ukraine
The Russian and Ukrainian governments are working hard to persuade the world that the other side is planning to commit an atrocity. The Kremlin has claimed more than once in recent days that Ukrainian forces intend to set off a so-called “dirty bomb” as part of a plan to bolster Western support for Kyiv and add pressure on Moscow by blaming Russia for the attack. Ukrainian and Western officials warn that Russia has invented this story to hide its own plans to use banned weapons and that Russian forces are planning a radioactive “terrorist act” with material stolen from the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant it continues to occupy. This is a reminder of two things. First, both sides know that information remains a powerful weapon of war. Second, international monitors are badly needed on the ground inside the war zone to separate fact from fiction. Russia’s credibility with Western governments is now close to zero, but nothing can be taken at face value during the active phase of a war.