 Now, Latin American Directions, I'm Jay Fidel. This is Think Tech, and I'm stepping in for Nicola Sissman, who is the regular host on the show, but I'm delighted to be able to talk to Juan Pablo Tello, who is an old friend through a number of shows that we had over the last year or two. So Juan, it's so nice to talk to you. Welcome to the show. Hi Jay, it's great to see you again and to be in the show again. Thanks for inviting me. So we're gonna talk today about the elections, of course, which is kind of a look through a keyhole to see all of Latin America and maybe North America just as well. But before we do that, I wanna ask you about the paintings behind you, because they're very captivating and I wanna know what they are and who did them and how you got them. Well, yeah, this is what I call the flagship of my house. It's both paintings for made by an artist in Comuna 3 in Medellin, which was a neighborhood that was really, really violent back in the 2000s. And with all the changes of the country, it became now a tourist destination. So I was maybe a year, two years ago there, met the artist, saw his work, found it fantastic because nowadays still it's so humble and working class neighborhood full of immigrants, but they decided to change. They decided to stop being the typical thing that everybody understands when they see a poor neighborhood in Latin America and they became a tourist destination, they do culture, they do dances and then they do this amazing painting. So I just think it's a symbol of the rehabilitation and change of Columbia. Yeah, we can see part of those paintings and I'm really impressed with the art, the color, the design, the passion, all that. Anyway, let's get to the subject of the elections. Nicholas Sussman has done two or three shows on the subject already and I guess it involves everybody in Columbia. Now, you're a lawyer, you're a business lawyer. At the same time, you're very candid and you see things clearly from the point of view of where the country and where Latin America is going. So I really, I'm excited to talk to you about it. So first, give me your general impression on Petco's election and he's gonna step up in a few days and there will be changes. There will be changes that some people like and some people hate. So can you talk about how he managed to get elected and what the changes might be? So the first thing we have to understand about the political process he had in Columbia is that it's one of patients of long time. Gustavo Petro has been trying to be president of Columbia since 12 years ago. He represents what people believe is real change, I do not believe that. He got himself elected with a speech selling that Columbia was worse than 20 years before selling that Columbia is just as Venezuela that things are dramatically bad, that everything's bad selling, let's say a pessimistic perspective of the country. And then if you repeat this message for 12 years and then you check on every single mistake that the passing governments had to take advantage of it, well, that message is gonna grow on the people especially in a country and in a place like that in America that is so unequal. When you have lack of access to opportunities, lack of access to good education, someone's gonna hear this and then these sort of speeches are really populist. People like them, they promote dramatic change with no basis. If you go and see the programs they are quite nicely written, but then when you go and ask for the funding for doing all those changes, they simply say the answer is taxes and tax to the rich, tax to the corporations, tax to everybody and there's a huge fiscal issue in Columbia, but then again, I'm going back to answering your question. It's an issue of patience, time and repeating over and over and over the same, I believe lies and misinformation regarding how the country has changed in 20 years until you get elected. Well, we are in the same place from my judgment with what is going on with Trump, what has been going on with Trump and his followers that is killing comparison actually. So what's Gustavo Petro's background? Where does he come from? Where did he emerge from on the political scene? So Gustavo Petro was a former guerrilla member of the M19 guerrilla movement. He went through a priest process, he went through a judicial process. Was he involved in the FARC settlement? No, he was not. He was not at all. He comes from a, let's say an urban guerrilla that was originated in Columbia in the 80s and then they became sort of the standard of guerrilla movement in Columbia because they were an intellectual guerrilla. They were not like the FARC, which were much more Marxist, much more militaristically advanced, let's say, but rather an urban guerrilla that striped for really symbolic hits. One of the most remembered ones that they did was stealing Simone Bolivar's sword from the National Museum and saying that they claim it for the people of Columbia. So his background comes from that period and from that movement. So his background comes from violence? I mean, it has not been proven that he has been involved in direct violent actions yet, I guess, but no, I mean, I would be lying if I tell you that he was involved in violent acts. That has not been judicially proven, hence I cannot affirm it. How about, is he sympathetic to the guerrilla movement? Is part of it, this is the kind of thing perhaps where the president of the country is actually sympathetic to the guerrilla faction, is this possible? No, no, no, that's a long stretch. Gustavo Petro has consistently criticized precisely the anarcho-traffic issue in the guerrilla movements. He's a rebel, but he went through a process, a judicial process to be part of the politics in the country almost 25 years ago. Hence he has been critic of the violent actions and of the drug dealing mechanisms that the guerrillas in Colombia have. So although he's not sympathetic and not openly fond of them, I do believe there's gonna be certain, let's say coincidences that might help to move forward and in peace process with the ELN and whatever remains of the FARC. So who actually support him? I get the feeling that it's people in the rural areas, people who are disadvantaged, whose education is not complete and who are fooled by the misinformation. Is this the correct statement of who voted for him? So if you ask me, I think it's a mix of everything and that's what happens in Latin America with whatever political leader gets elected. It doesn't matter if it's from the right, left, center party, it doesn't matter. So you have different kind of voters. The first ones are the ones that vote for him because they have never been represented in the government. Let's say leftist citizens that have always supported guerrilla movements that have been part of them and that are now integrating into society. Then you have people from the outskirts of the country. If you look at Colombia, you're gonna find highly developed nuclei like Medellin, Bogota, Caramanga, Barranquilla. And then if you drive four or five hours away from them, you're gonna be in a totally different country in a rural area without access to any basic needs. So he was particularly a victor in those places in Colombia especially in the places that used to be guerrilla strongholds. So I mean, those are just coincidences, right? Well, I mean, I'm an outsider completely but it strikes me that in the conversations I've had with both you and Nicholas Susman, you know, the FARC settlement was a good thing. Colombia has been moving in the right direction. It has a democracy going on. And I wonder if this particular result in this election, this new president is encouraging to you or maybe not? Well, if you ask me, Jay, I'm not too fond of him to be honest, he is the political candidate that I dreaded the most in the election. Mainly because I believe he's a terrible administrator. He was a major of Bogota a couple of years ago when honestly, there's a few little things to rescue from his administration. He was all about talking and politics in populist ideas that liked funding, that liked execution, that did nothing for the city. So my criticism for him comes from there. I do not believe he is the most prepared person nor the ideal person to handle Colombia in the moment as it is. It's been 20 years of advancement. It's been 20 years of changing things. I'm aware we still have a lot of challenges, especially inequality and lack of state presence precisely in the areas where he got the most votes. But that doesn't mean things are being done wrong. They have to be corrected. They have to be maintaining certain aspects. But honestly, right now, if you want my optimistic view, I don't think he might be a threat to democracy in a sense that it's been 25 years since he's been playing the political game in Colombia. One of the things I criticize the most about him is he sells himself as an outsider of the political field in Colombia and he's not. He's governing with it. Actually, right now, he's going to govern with traditional parties of Colombia. So if you are going to sell yourself as an anti-corruption candidate and then go and work with all the same parties that have been part of the control of the government for 25 years, then that thing just doesn't make sense to me. So I do not believe he's the real change. I do not believe he is a threat to democracy because, ironically, because of the corruption mechanisms that exist in Colombia. But yeah, I'm not fine. His opponent, am I right to say Hernandez was his opponent? And his opponent was a business person, a businessman, a developer, I guess. Would his opponent been more in line with where the government was, more in line with the direction of the country prior to this election? Was Hernandez somebody who would help build the country and continue the progress of the country more than Petro? Wow, that's a difficult question, Jay, because honestly, I believe the second round of the presidential elections in Colombia were just, I mean, for an elector like me or as myself, it was just choosing between the worst and the least worst, I guess. Hernandez, for me, was not the best option, clearly. But if you put me in an election where I have to choose between Gustavo Petro, who has radical change ideas regarding how the economy must be run in the country and a person that doesn't, then I'm going to pick the person that doesn't simply because as I see things as long as business keep working, as long as Colombians have jobs, as long as we keep opening opportunities, as we have done for 20 years, things are going to change eventually. But if you put a rock in the path of progress, well, that's what I'm mostly afraid of. I mean, I'm optimistic. I hope he does a good government. I want the best for my country in the end. I do not share his ideology. I do not share how he wants to run the country. I do not share his speech because I think it's lying to Colombians. Colombia has changed. Colombia is a different country. But yeah, I mean, that's my optimistic view. OK. And that is West and outside there. Well, if I'm in business, am I concerned about what happens when Petro takes over? Do I should I rush and close my deals right now before things change? What would you say to your clientele about that? So the issue, Jay, is I will say it depends. I mean, I'm optimistic. I will tell you it depends on the kind of project you have. If you're just trying to get funding for a big highway project or a big hydroelectric plant, probably it would be better to close it now. And I think there's two reasons to do that. The first one is as we all know, the economy in a macroeconomic level and globally is changing and it's going to affect Colombia. So it's going to change the interest rates in most of the people and most of the developers of projects in Colombia acquire their loans in dollars. So if you wait for the economy to get worse, well, that's just going to get more expensive. So the fastest you close your deal, the better. And the second is, although Mr. Petro and these mechanisms that he governs with can be a guarantee that things are going to be stable in Colombia, it's better to just close your deals, do it when the economics are working, and don't let anything open to randomness or to whatever happens in the country. Then again, I don't believe Gustavo Petro is going to be a dictatorial president that's going to change the game in Colombia because he can't. And that's not his speech and that's not what he has promoted for 20 years. But definitely there's going to be changes in the economic ground that might affect the development of businesses. Hopefully not that dramatically. Hopefully not as the radical opposition in Colombia wants to sell it, that this is going to become Cuba or Venezuela. I do not believe that. I hope it doesn't happen. But I think we just have to be careful. And as with any business, just calculate your risks and assess them properly. Every country has to have a foreign policy. It has to have foreign relations. Countries in Latin America have to be mindful of what's happening to the North in Mexico, in the US, maybe Canada. So where is Petro on those things? Does he think beyond the borders of Colombia? Yeah. Gustavo Petro is a person who has recalled the Latin American values all along his political career. And in this election, particularly before the first round, he was openly critic of many of the posters of Colombia in its foreign policy. Colombia has been a country that has supported this past 20 years, a lot of the liberal agenda of the OECD, and has followed many advice from European countries and the US Colombia. It's clearly the closest ally of the US in South America. So Gustavo Petro has been always really critical of that. But since he got elected, he has moderated his speech. And I believe so because of the mechanisms that he's working, the political mechanisms that got him elected depend in a matter and in a way of that economic structure. So I hope there are not big changes in many things in Colombia. He has moderated his speech dramatically because after the first round, he had to get the voters from the center political spectrum of Colombia and convince them that he was not going to be Nicolás Maduro in Colombia. He wanted to differentiate himself from that, let's say, socialism of the 21st century political agenda. So I think there's going to be changes. The US received his election with calmness, which was something really important for business persons and people that have a political perspective, such as mine. So yeah, he has an agenda. He's planning to integrate with Latin America, which I think it's great. But hopefully he does not leave behind all the good things that we have built in 20 years in the diplomatic scenario. That means good relations with the US, great relations with NATO, and great relation with the powerful economies of the continent. Colombia has been one of the powerhouses moving the continent along with Mexico, Chile, and Brazil. The past years and the Pacific Alliance is an example of that. So hopefully he does not leave that behind because it's an instrument that can be and should be used more to get our economy and move it. Well, we've talked about this before. We've talked about the huge benefits that would result if Latin America would stabilize. And it seems to me that over our discussions, Colombia has been relatively stable, that it may not be as stable in the future as it has been over the past couple of decades. But still it's a keyhole into the future of Latin America and to the extent that it is stable, to the extent that it sheds stability on other countries and becomes an economic political leader. Then that would bring Latin America into being a cohesive continent, a continent that can do big business around the world with its resources and trade possibilities and all that. But to the extent that Petro isn't really there for that, I wonder what we can learn about the political events in other countries. For example, Brazil. We're talking about Brazil before the show. And Brazil is moving to the left right now. Is this a good thing? Is this something that would work in favor of a consolidated Latin America? Honestly, yeah, I don't think so. So there's two things that we have to analyze when we see Gustavo Petro's election along with the elections in Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro and Luz Ignacio Lula da Silva. And this is the result of inequality and lack of opportunities. Every time people, when the people's hungry, when people lack opportunities, when people do not see a possibility to advance to progress, to have a better life, a better quality standard, then they are going to be prone to admit extremist speeches that works for leftist and radical right speeches. I mean Bolsonaro is an example of that, right? But I do believe that if these speeches keep winning in Latin America and they keep with economic programs that just literally bleed out the finances of the countries, then nothing good is going to come out of that, right? And you can see that even in Brazil. The later years of the partidos trabalhadores in Brazil, well, things were not working quite well. Brazil had huge corruption scandals that actually splashed all over Latin America. So I do not believe that Lula winning in Brazil is a good thing. I don't think Petro is a DL candidate for Colombia, although there's a silver lining regarding stability, J. And I have to rescue this. And it is if a leftist president is elected in Colombia and then he can govern wrong or right whatever he does, while the country keeps being peaceful, then I think there's a silver lining there for Colombian democracy because it would be a proof that his speech that got him elected that Colombia was a dictatorship of 100 years of the traditional political class, it's going to be a lie because it is. So if you ask me, I do not believe they are the best option for Latin America. I clearly don't believe it. But if they do it and they govern peacefully and we can change in the next election, probably in the following years and we keep having these discussions, then that's going to say something about Latin American democracies. And it's that we are ready to finally crescent and get away from the dependence of the person that's sitting in the president's chair. What I want to mean with this is if as a country, Colombia and as a continent or subcontinent, Latin America finally gets to the point where it doesn't matter who sits on the president's chair in each country because there's going to be a state politics, then it's going to be a good thing. I'm not sure we're there yet. I hope that's the case because if that's the case, then that means Colombia has grown and changed over these 20 years and is ready to accept different political perspectives without affecting the political and the state politics. To know where we're going, to wait for something independently from which political perspective you come from. Now, if you ask me what happens between Brazil and Colombia, what are the similarities, I'm going to tell you what I believe is the biggest problem in Latin America is lack of access to opportunities. If you see Brazil and Colombia in their electoral maps, it's just a matter of understanding what happens in each region and it's going to be the same mission. If you go to the south of Brazil, Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Curitiba, all these places, they have huge development indexes, access to opportunities, they cover every basic needs. If you go to the north of Brazil, it's going to be a completely different country and it's exactly what happens here. If you're in the nuclei of development, it's going to be fine. You're going to have access to your opportunity. There's poverty, of course, we have to work on that. But it's a radical difference between the points of the country that are hugely developed and the ones that are not. And I think that's precisely what causes that these speeches are sold in the electors, in Latin American electors. The purple represents the Petro community, Petro voters and the yellow colors represent the Hernandez community and the Petro community one. So does this map, you know, does it work similar to the way the US map works now where you have red and blue states, where you have divisiveness, where you have two countries operating within the country? Is that a dark possibility for Colombia? Because it's happening in the US for sure. You get to television, you know what I mean. We have huge divisiveness, aside from disparity, we have that too, but we're not heading anywhere good. And so the question is whether the phenomenon is similar in the US and in Colombia and maybe other countries also in Latin America. Yes, I mean, Colombia has a long history of polarization. It's been 200 years of civil and political conflict that we have resolved bit by bit every now and then. But yes, Jay, the answer is it's totally correct. The difference is that here in Colombia, you don't get a uniformity within the states, but rather a slight majority inside each of the states. If you go or the departments that are the political divisions here in Colombia, if you go and check on the departments, it depends where you are. So you have a place like Antioquia, which is like the stronghold of the right of Colombia, where Alvaro Riveles is from, that's gonna be a department that's always gonna support the right, this part is in Colombia, right? But if you see just to the left of Antioquia, you have Choco, which is the place that is the most dark purple in the map, is one of the poorest departments in Colombia. So yes, we're living that. It happens even between departments and between and inside departments, inside cities. You can see how the electorate is divided depending on their access to opportunities and the development indexes in which every elector lives. That does not mean that someone that has access to opportunities that has been a privileged person is not going to vote for Gustavo Petro-Rol Fernandez. I mean, there's everything, a little bit of everything in each political camp, let's call it, but certainly we have polarization and we have polarization between the people that believe that something was being done properly in the past 20 years and the ones that don't. And I say this in such a general way because if you ask most of the Colombians, they do not like the candidates. They just have to choose between what's less wars or what they consider is not that bad. Well, we have a different kind of thing. We have ideological divisions. I'm sure you've seen all our ideological divisions on, for example, abortion, gun control, same-sex marriage, so many things we are divided and we are divided in that same kind of two-country division. And I wonder if you are experiencing the same thing in Colombia, whether the division that we talk about, it's not a perfect division, but it is an identifiable one, it's also on ideological grounds. I do believe it's an ideological grounds and it's an ideological grounds relating to how the country is developing and the mechanisms through which it has been developing. So if we go to social rights, Colombia is a conservative country historically. So you're gonna see that division straightforward. So young people is prone to more liberal ideas regarding social rights and individual rights. Older people might not be too fond of those ideas, right? But if you ask me, I would say the biggest division in Colombia would be the persons that supported how things were being run and the ones that don't. Because in the middle- It's government operation, government efficiency, as you said, an economic advantage rather than sort of religious motivations or ideological. And I'm sorry if I'm getting into like a lot of gray areas here, but I do believe that's the case because there's not a single answer. So many people, for example, support right political parties because of religious ideas, it happens here in Colombia too. There's a couple of congressmen that have been elected by Christian bases and evangelical ones, but it's not as influential as in the US. You have- Can I go to one more? Go ahead, sorry. Yeah, yeah. What I'm trying to explain is that political divisions in Colombia are really diverse and you get a little bit of everything. If you go to persons that supported Gustavo Petro, you're gonna find from the person that is part of the Colombian Communist Party that firmly believes that the rebels have been fighting for a just cause for 60 years to a person that might be in the center of the political spectrum that believes that the governments of the last 20 years have not addressed properly social issues, but they prefer a change instead of keep doing the same in fear than something more radical from the left comes to the country. And if you go to the right, it's the same. So you have people that firmly believe that the extreme right is the answer that we have to keep on fighting the guerrillas and the drunken wars just with weapons and bullets. And then you have people that are a little bit more prone to the center which I consider myself. I mean, I think I'm in the right political spectrum but I do believe that if we want to change violence we have to address the war on drugs from a social perspective. If we want to change the lack of opportunities we have to work on the social issues of the country by doing it with the private sector. I do not believe the public sector is going to be the answer and it's gonna be the most efficient way of solving things. So with that being said is there's a huge gray area even between the camps and the two political sites that were in the election in Colombia. It's such a diverse thing. And one thing they do have in common is they want the best for Colombia of course just as in the states both sides of the discussion. One's the best for the states. But yeah, that's how it goes. It's crazy because you get people from a religious background that vote for the left and people from other religious background that vote for the right. So there's not like a clear consensus. But I'm wondering if other countries in Latin America have the same kind of division, the same kind of like gray scale division where it's hard to find a hard boundary. Brazil is like that, maybe Venezuela. I don't know, tell me what the general direction is for Latin America on this particular issue. Yeah, so I believe there's two discussions. The first one is the economic one because of the influence of the socialism of the 21st century that Hugo Chávez campaigned all along Latin America. There's a huge discussion in Latin America between what leftist called neoliberalism and then a more central and plant economy perspective. So that's one big difference. You can put whatever kind of social perspective or angles you have there. So either you believe that private enterprises and working with the private sector works and has worked or you don't. And you believe that is the state that has to plan, that has to be a more centralized economy, such as the one that was promoted by those ideals, right? So I think that's the first division. And then you have the second one, which is a cultural one. And it goes in a way, in the discussion with individual and social rights. So that's two different things because you get people that support abortion in Colombia that are from the right and are from the left. And then you get people that do not support abortion that are from the left and from the right. So it's quite different and most of Latin America works this way. And I think this happens because of the different perspectives and opportunities people have. If you ask myself, I do believe a liberal economy is the way to keep on building the country such as we have done in the past 20 years. But I do believe that social policies and individual rights are hugely important, especially in Colombia, the right to abortion is one of the ways to escape the poverty traps. Colombia and most of Latin America is not like the states where you can have a minimum wage job and you can get a car, you can get a house, you can survive, right? Here, if you get two childs, if you're a woman, you get pregnant and you have two children, chances are you and your next 10 generations are gonna be poor. So social rights have a huge impact in economic development. So with all this being said, and sorry, Jay, I know I usually talk a lot, is what I want to say is- No, I know you're very passionate about it. And I sense in you a very strong feeling to do what you can do for the benefit of Colombia and to make it a better place. But it may not work out the way you want on. I'm sorry to tell you, it may not be a perfect result. So my question to you, here you are, you've been thoughtful and passionate about it, you're fully informed about it, you think about it. And I know this not only from discussion today, but every time we have talked. And the question is, what are you doing in order to move Colombia in the right direction? So I believe in work, Jay. I believe that hard work, toil and grinding, it's the answer. I believe building companies and giving employment is the most social action you can take in your life. I do not believe the state has to answer for those things. I think the state has to cover the basic things that every human person needs to decide what to do with his life. But honestly, just work, Jay. I'm an optimistic person is what I tell you. I am not fond of the government right now. I am not fond of the ideas they have. That doesn't mean I'm gonna run away from Colombia in one or two years. I wanna keep building this country. And I would like to have that silver lining that I told you. Hopefully we do not depend so much on the person that's sitting on the presidency. And what am I doing? Working, trying to close deals, getting new clients and telling them that Colombia is now a stable country that despite the elections, our institutions have changed this past 20 years. And hopefully that's gonna keep us going on track. And the reflection I was doing after the election was if we managed to survive through almost 70 years of a bloodbath between the guerrillas and the army and then we got the drug cartels and then we have the FARC. We can survive for years of a bad government. So I don't think it's that bad. I believe Colombians are really prone to hard work. Are people that likes to earn things, not to be given to them. And yes, what am I doing? Working, believing in my country. And hopefully there's that silver lining and in four years we get to elect a better president as a show of what's Latin America's oldest democracy which is Colombia is right. Are you unique or do you know a lot of people who feel the same way you do? So I come from a business context. You know, my dad was also a businessman. Most of the people I move around are business persons that are working for the country. So they feel the same. They think until they are not giving enough evidence that their freedom and their things are not going to go south, they are going to keep on building Colombia. Because honestly, Jay, we've been through worst. Let me ask you this too. We live in a world where borders are porous. We live in a world where Vladimir Putin can and does affect American elections. And he's done that twice already and he's probably going to do it again. We live in a world where Russia and China are taking advantage of developing countries in Africa. Putin is selling his war in a variety of places in Africa. And likewise in Latin America. And I wonder if this is happening in Colombia or any of the countries we've mentioned that you know about. And whether you have any concern that Russia, China, or anyone else could come in and skew the process that you're talking about. We've been talking about mostly domestic affairs in Colombia. Are you concerned that foreign nations whose scruples, whose intentions are questionable are coming into Latin America, coming into Colombia and may affect the politics? I hope not. I mean, as we discussed earlier, Colombia is if not the most important ally of the U.S. in South America, Colombia is really close to NATO. We have been working with this organization to standardize our military forces since 10 years ago, especially because of our internal conflict. But this has an interest of the Colombian diplomacy to get linked to those experiences and to understand how those military forces work in an international context. So my first answer is I hope not. The real answer is I think they do influence Latin America in a certain way, not Colombia because of what I just told you, but it's clear that Russia has an agenda, an international one to sell. It's clearly it's aggression to Ukraine and how can it affect Latin America? I mean, I hope we don't get to the point to something similar like the 60s where we had missiles pointing to the U.S. from Cuba and causing a huge alarm in the world. But I think that's a probability. Putin is cornered. I firmly believe he's not gonna weird that war. It's wars are not just fought with soldiers on the ground and equipment, but with money and logistics. And if you ask me who's got most money and logistics, I'm gonna bet on NATO a hundred times more than I would bet in Russia and Ukraine. But I do believe this is gonna have consequences in the region. Russia has been really close to Nicaragua, which is a country that does not have the best relations with Colombia. Russia has been really close with Nicolás Maduro's government in Venezuela. Couple of years ago, a couple of bombers from Russia flew past through Colombia in airspace, which were intercepted by our Air Force. But it certainly raises concerns specifically because Latin America has been a peaceful continent regarding international relations. Although there's been a couple of historical wars, Latin American countries are not used to fight each other. It's simply not in our agendas, right? So my concern is that this campaign and the fact that Russia is being cornered in Ukraine might bring some of those preoccupations to the continent, a peaceful one, at least between countries. So hopefully doesn't. I do believe that Latin America, whether I like it or not, is controlled by the US from a security perspective. I rather have that than having Chinese and Russian interventions in Nicaragua or Russia, in Nicaragua, Venezuela, or Cuba, messing the neighborhood around, you know? Part of the things that permits Latin America to focus on social and development issues is the fact that we have this Pax Americana that doesn't let any of these international things hit us, right? I mean, it's not something I'm proud to recognize, believe me, but it's true. And I do not like Russian bombers flying over Colombia. I do not like Russian ships being stationed in Nicaragua. I think it's a threat to the region. And it certainly diverges us from where we have to focus because once Latin American countries get involved in these international controversies that hit us, but really, we're not that close to those conflicts, right? So our focus of working on building socially our countries, advancing our economies, our infrastructure is gonna change to an international conflict that has nothing to do with us. And that is simply, we are just being used like puns in a chessboard. So hopefully it doesn't happen. I hope not. Oh, God. Well, Imon Pablo Tello, it's really wonderful to talk to you again. We are for sure out of time, but I have greatly learned from this discussion and I hope we can circle back and talk some more. Maybe Nicholas Sussman will let me talk to you again, huh? Hopefully, I mean, I'm a very little Jay. I love talking to you guys. I think it's important that we build communication between the North and the South of the continent, especially in these times where we have such dramatic anti-Iranic speeches being repeated all over the world. For me, it's a tragedy. I just can't understand how these things still happen, but well, that's what dictators and autocrats cause, right? Thank you, Juan. It's wonderful to talk to you next time soon. It was a pleasure, Jay. Thanks a lot for having me again. Aloha. Thank you so much for watching Think Tech Hawaii. If you like what we do, please like us and click the subscribe button on YouTube and the follow button on Vimeo. You can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn, and donate to us at thinktechhawaii.com. Mahalo.