On Monday, January 16, the fourth trip abroad by the President of Colombia, Gustavo Petro, will take place in the short time elapsed in 2023. His destination will be Davos (Switzerland), where he will speak as head of state before the World Economic Forum. The president is expected to have at least two other international trips during the first month of the year.
Photo: @ConchaBaracaldo, Twitter.
His flight is scheduled to start at noon and will last about 15 hours, so he will land on Tuesday the 17th in European territory. During the visit he will be accompanied by his slow boss, Laura Sarabia; his ambassador to Switzerland, Francisco Javier Echeverri; and the Ministers of Foreign Relations, Álvaro Leyva Durán; of Finance and Public Credit, José Antonio Ocampo; Environment and Sustainable Development, Susana Muhamad, and Mines and Energy, Irene Vélez.
After arriving, Petro will immediately go to the forum, which is attended by some 2,700 leaders from governments, businesses and civil society. She will be a panelist at the event ‘Food Action Alliance: Investing in Greater Resilience’, alongside Tanzanian President Samia Suluhu Hassan. In her presentation, she will address issues such as the climate crisis, the energy transition and total peace in the country. Petro will also meet with executives from global companies that have investments in Colombia, such as Nestlé, Enel, Coca Cola, Microsoft and Yara.
He will also meet with the president of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), Ilan Goldfajn; with the Democratic politician and US vice president between 1993 and 2001, Al Gore; with the General Director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Kristalina Georgieva, and the founder of the World Economic Forum, Klaus Schwab, among others. If all goes as planned, Petro will remain in Switzerland for six days.
The fourth trip in the month
In the 14 days that have passed since 2023, Petro has traveled abroad three times. The first was to Brazil, on January 1, to witness the presidential inauguration of his fellow political spectrum, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. The second was an extraordinary trip to Caracas (Venezuela) to meet with the leader of the Venezuelan regime, Nicolás Maduro, on January 7. On this trip they reached some agreements on the economic and social future of the border, in addition to reaffirming Venezuela’s commitment to total peace.
His third trip was to Chile on Monday the 9th, for a scheduled state visit with the president of that country, Gabriel Boric, also a leftist. There he also spoke of the interest and solidarity of the Chileans for the purpose of total peace. Although that trip was scheduled to last two days, Petro made the decision to return to Colombia earlier to attend to the environmental emergency in the municipality of Rosas (Cauca), which he could only reach until Thursday due to critical weather conditions.
The president has at least two more trips left for this month. His fifth trip will be to Buenos Aires (Argentina), for his participation in the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (Celac) on January 24. Petro will close January with a meeting with Ecuador’s president, Guillermo Lasso, on January 31. In both visits, the head of state of Colombia will be there for only one day. with Infobae