The Yale Political Union hosted the former president of Colombia, Iván Duque, for a fireside chat on the future of relations between the United States and Latin America in the aftermath of U.S. intervention in Venezuela.
President of the YPU, Mor Szepsi, left, and Iván Duque, right, at the fireside chat. (Credit: Sygne Stole)
Hannah Owens Pierre
Staff Writer, The Buckley Beacon
Last Thursday, former Colombian president Iván Duque joined the Yale Political Union for a fireside chat in Linsley-Chittenden Hall, where he discussed U.S.-Latin American Relations after the overthrow of Nicolas Maduro’s regime in Venezuela.
Duque served as the president of Colombia from 2018 to 2022 as a member of the conservative Democratic Centre Party. Duque was president during the Venezuelan refugee crisis and implemented an open-door policy towards Venezuelans, granting protected status to 1.7 million refugees. He is also a strong proponent of strengthening ties between the United States and Colombia. He currently serves as a senior fellow at the Yale Jackson School of Global Affairs.
In early January, the United States conducted a military operation in Venezuela that captured former president Nicolas Maduro and his wife, who currently face narcotrafficking charges in America. Following the attack, Trump has repeatedly clashed with the current president, Gustavo Petro, who condemned the attack in Venezuela and whom Trump has accused of sending cocaine to the United States.
Duque opened the event by voicing his support for the capture of Maduro. “Is there a morality behind actions against dictators and against genocidal leaders who are trying to destroy the essence and values that we share in the Western Hemisphere?” He asked, before defending the U.S. operation. “For more than eight years, I have made a call for the international community to undertake a humanitarian intervention in Venezuela,” he said.
Despite his support for U.S. intervention in Venezuela, Duque spoke out against acting president Delcy Rodriguez, whom president Donald Trump has backed. “I don’t call her president,” he said. “I hope that before the end of the year, there is a call for free elections in Venezuela.”
Duque also defended his policy of openness to Venezuelan refugees, who were allowed to live and work in Colombia for up to 10 years during his presidency, citing inspiration from the United States’ policy of temporary protected status after Hurricane Mitch hit Central America in 1998. “I lost a lot of political capital, but I didn’t care. I thought it was the right thing,” he said.
Nearly 3 million Venezuelans have arrived in Colombia in the past decade, in part thanks to Duque’s policies. Following the U.S. intervention in Venezuela, Colombia has been preparing for an influx of more Venezuelan refugees. Unlike other Latin American countries, such as Chile, which has been cracking down on Venezuelan migration, Colombia has maintained its open-door policy. Nevertheless, public opinion is mixed on the issue, with nearly four out of five Colombians saying that migrants were harmful to their country in 2023.
Responding to opposition to U.S. intervention in Venezuela, Duque recounted a personal story to illustrate the existential threat Maduro presented to Latin America: “Nicolas Maduro in 2021 paid $2 million to the FARC (a far-left guerrilla group in Columbia) dissidents to perpetrate a live assassination attempt on me,” he said. He compared the intervention to the killing of Osama Bin Laden and the arrest of former Serbian President Slobodan Milošević. “Maduro had been offered plenty of options to leave power, but he chose so that the only thing to work was a legitimate and morally responsible precision intervention that I think, militarily speaking, is flawless.”
In addition to emphasizing the benefits to Latin America, Duque appealed to U.S. interests in overthrowing Venezuela. “In order to make America great, you need to make the Americas great,” he said. “And in order to make the Americas great, you need to dismantle all forms of authoritarianism. You need to promote democracy.”
Following the talk, Duque answered several questions from audience members. When asked whether the U.S. actions constituted neocolonialism, Duque argued that “The United States is not attempting to or based on the idea of taking away territories from other countries,” which received a loud reaction from the audience. Duque also pointed out an alleged hypocrisy behind the treatment of actions by the Trump administration and previous administrations: “If the Obama administration does it, he’s a patriot. If the Trump administration does it, he’s violating the Constitution.”
At the end of the chat, Duque stayed around for a few moments to shake hands and exchange niceties with audience members.