In a blistering attack on his country’s elites, President Gustavo Petro urged Congress that “the richest of the rich of Colombia must pay” the government’s budget proposal for next year.
Petro and his finance minister are currently preparing the 2026 public spending bill and the finance law needed to secure the revenue through, among other things, taxes.
In an address to the nation, the president warned that “if the Senate, the Congress, don’t approve a finance law — which must be paid by Colombia’s richest of the rich, because they have taken this money — all will degrow in 2030.”
Amid growing tensions with the government, Congress last year sank the 2025 finance bill, which forced Petro to cut spending from the budget he had issued by decree.
This may not happen again, because “the State will go bankrupt if the Senate doesn’t approve a finance law,” said the president.
The State is going to go bankrupt, all the figures say so. And if we sink into barbarism and violence, it will not be during this government, but after.
President Gustavo Petro
Since before taking office in 2022, Petro has advocating for an increase in government spending and increased taxation on the elites to reduce wealth inequality that has become one of the most extreme in the world.
The president’s promises to do away with neoliberal economics has been fiercely opposed by the business elites and the traditional political parties in Congress.
Petro’s confrontational approach, backed by labor union protests, turned out to be surprisingly effective earlier this tear when Congress largely approved the government’s labor reform bill that sought to restore labor rights that had been reduced in the early 2000’s.
