Colombia’s conservative President Abelardo de la Espriella offered an effusive condemnation of globalism, organized crime, and the notoriously inefficient bureaucracy at the United Nations at the General Assembly on Thursday, urging a return to sovereignty and patriotism.
De la Espriella, who took office in August, did not attend the General Assembly as he made a campaign promise to not leave Colombia for the duration of his tenure as president. Vice President José Manuel Restrepo read a speech written by de la Espriella on his behalf, however, in which he outlined the priorities of the Colombian people and his administration and how they overlap with the goal of the United Nations.
The speech — demanding an international legal definition of terrorism, robust international action against terrorist criminals, and an end to double standards in the defense of human rights — marked a notable contrast from the last time the country addressed this forum. During the 2025 U.N. General Assembly, de la Espriella’s predecessor Gustavo Petro, an avowed Marxist and member of the defunct terrorist organization M19, rambled for 40 minutes demanding President Donald Trump’s arrest, defending cocaine use, and offering racist comments accusing drug dealers of being predominantly “blond and blue-eyed.” De la Espriella won a decisive victory in the 2026 presidential election against Petro’s hand-picked successor, Marxist Senator Iván Cepeda.
As a result, Colombia joined a growing number of countries in Latin America led by hardline, right-wing governments who have used their time before the General Assembly this year to condemn the U.N., defend nationalism, and make the case for aggressive persecution of global criminals.
Vice President Restrepo, reading de la Espriella’s remarks, shared his words warning that “globalism,” as practiced by the U.N., was “perverse and harmful.”
“I begin by being exact by what I mean by this word,” de la Espriella explained, “I’m not talking about international commerce or the cooperation of states or humanity sharing problems and responsibilities. All of that is perfectly necessary.”
“I am talking about a concept in which the nation, sovereignty, individual identities — the traditions and values of peoples — are obstacles that must cede before a progressing cultural and political uniformity decided in supranational circumstances,” he continued. “I don’t share that doctrine, which I consider perverse and harmful. For me, multilateralism does not consist of dissolving the nations, but rather facilitating their cooperation.”
“Loving the fatherland is not incompatible with respecting the rest. Defending the history, culture, values and traditions of a nation do not mean denigrating those of others,” the president said. “International cooperation is richer when those who sit around this table know who they are, where they come from, and what the people they speak for represent.”
De la Espriella also heavily criticized the efficiency of the U.N. as an organization.
“I believe in the United Nations organization and, precisely because I believe in it, I find it legitimate to ask if the institutions that we have constructed are responding with sufficient effectiveness to the problems for which they exist,” he noted. “Is the U.N. fulfilling those purposes with the effectiveness that the modern world demands? Are there bureaucratic structures that have become excessively burdensome? Do we allocate too many resources, too much energy, to adjudicating procedures, and too little to solving problems?”
He also condemned the politicization of human rights. Without naming any country or parties in particular, the Colombian president wrote, “I categorically reject using human rights as a flag raised against some and hidden against others. It can also not be used as an instrument to reward friends, punish enemies, or even worse, stay silent according to the circumstances of the moment.”
Elsewhere in his remarks, de la Espriella observed the extraordinary circumstances following his inauguration. Three days after he took office, Colombia experienced the most severe earthquake in its 21st-century history, a 7.4-magnitude disaster that devastated much of Colombia’s west.
“There was no time to ask us if we were ready. Actions needed to be taken, and we acted … we had to save human lives — for everything else there was time. The appointments could wait, the meetings could wait, but my compatriots who were under the rubble could not.”
De la Espriella also acknowledged that the catastrophic Petro administration had significantly eroded public trust, and his administration considered reviving that trust a priority. Restoring security and, in particular, weakening narco-terrorist organizations, is the first step towards restoring that trust, he asserted.
“My government is firm in doing away with euphemisms. Organizations who murder, kidnap, use explosives, recruit minors, and who deliberately resort to terrorism to subjugate a society are terrorist groups,” he asserted. “That is what we call them and we are facing them with all the legitimate force of the state, within the constitution and within the law.”
The president also encouraged foreign investment and praised his people.
“Millions of Colombians don’t ask for the state to resolve their lives,” he said. “They ask for it to give them an opportunity to construct that life.”