The Colombian economy It has grown 2.7% during the first quarter And it maintains the upstairs rhythm last year, when GDP had an improvement of 1.7%. The numbers invite moderate optimism but do not clear the horizon of Gustavo Petro. He has just returned from China with a feeling of political victory, but by stepping on the mainland in Bogotá, he felt that his most precious initiatives face more obstacles than expected. In Beijing, Petro added Colombia to the New Silk Route that drives the Asian giant. “The most important decision for the country in the last 25 years“The Government said on the agreement reached within the framework of the Chinese-Celac Meeting (Community of Latin American and Caribbean States) that Petro attended as the main temporal authority of the block.
For the Palacio de Nariño, “new investment opportunities” between the two countries open. Immediately, the US Secretary of State, Marco Rubiohe described the initiative promoted by Beijing a “diplomatic indebtedness trap” that “will be expensive” to Latin Americans. The Western Hemisphere’s Office of Donald Trump’s administration was much more emphatic and announced Thursday that “it will strongly oppose recent projects and upcoming disbursements byl Inter -American Development Bank (IDB) and other international financial institutions for state companies and controlled by the Chinese government in Colombia. “Those plans, he added,” endangers the security of the region. “The dollars of the United States taxpayers” should not be used in any way by international organizations to subsidize Chinese companies in our hemisphere. “ Bogotá Metro line 2 It is a project supported by a credit of 415 million dollars from the IDB that executes a consortium in which the Chinese company CRRC participates.
The American congressman Carlos Giménez, republican representative for a district in southern Florida, also raised his voice. Petro, he said, delivers Colombian interests at the hands of “communist Chinese and thieves“The National Association of Entrepreneurs of Colombia (Andi) immediately expressed concern about the risks of Petro’s approach to China for companies that export to the United States. 24% of Colombian sales to the world in 2024 went to the United States and represented 14,336 million dollars. Part of the employers would prefer not to resent that destiny of exports despite the impact of the tariff war that the White House declared.
Commercial balance
Trump’s protectionist turn only strengthens bonds with Beijing in a context that makes Washington nervous. Commercial exchange between China and Latin America exceeded 500,000 million dollars Last year and everything indicates that this volume will grow. China is Colombia’s second business partner. It exports coffee, oil, ferroníquel, copper, gold and emeralds for about 2.1 billion dollars, and has bought last year for 16,000 million dollars. Petro has asked to balance the bilateral balance and believes that the recent step is directed in that direction. About 100 Chinese companies operate in Colombia in different areas of the economy. Relationships with that power are in turn seen with distrust of a right that hopes to return to power in 2026. In that context, different analysts point out, the possibility of opening a gap between the intentions of the first left-wing government and the political-economic reality is revealed.
The fate of labor reform
Petro has accumulated size transpiés since he assumed the presidency. One of them is labor reform. The Senate rejected the initiative. Government tried without luck to submit to a popular consultation a law that seeks to guarantee an eight -hour work, a special pay during the Sunday or festive rest days, the workers of the workers to address medical problems and the hiring by the companies of at least two disabled for every 100 workers, among other issues. The reform is resisted by a good part of the business sector because they fear that labor costs will increase.
Next Monday, The Senate will begin its third debate on the same reform that has already sunk. The project will have a new and uncertain opportunity by virtue of an appeal of the Executive that was accepted by the Upper Congress House at the same time that he said “no” to the referendum. Petro denounced that the rejection of the consultation was the result of a fraud in the vote of the legislators. Now, the senators They have until June 20 To approve or insist with the same position, as the press media will happen. “The project is of great importance, since it seeks to modernize labor relations in Colombia, guaranteeing greater protection of workers’ rights and promoting more dignified and equitable conditions in employment,” the executive explained in his “urgency” message sent to Congress.
A new official defeat in the Senate is more than an opposition challenge for Petro, who continues to appeal to popular mobilization as a tool that allows him to materialize his program. “I immediately propose the meeting of the workers’ centrals, the peasant coordination, the communal action boards, the neighborhood youth committees and the indigenous movement to take the next step.” The Unitary Workers Center (CUT) and other union organizations responded to the call and occupy the streets of the capital and other cities on May 19. The mayor of Bogotá, Carlos Fernando Galán, asked the president to avoid the “Incendiary speeches”.
Warning
According to Germán Gómez Polo, columnist of the newspaper Bogota ‘El Espectador’, The Senate “makes a bad reading of the political and social environment” And “it seems to forget that 2021”, the year of the social outbreak against the president of the right -wing, Iván Duque, “is not so far from 2025” because their demands “are still not attended.” These protests promoted Petro’s candidacy, “but beyond the leader, people embraced the idea of change and the need to restructure the State in favor of citizenship and not of the political class.” For Gómez Polo, the fact that the presidential management “does not have the forceful approval of the majorities, does not mean that this sympathy has gone next to its opponents.” Petro has a level of disapproval of 61.9%, while the negative look of Congress reaches 71%.
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