United States President-elect Donald Trump is planning to maintain promised US support for Colombia’s suspended peace process, reported radio station Blu on Friday.
According to the radio station, Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos called with former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, a presumed member of the incoming US government, who assured the new US president has no plans to cut funding for Colombia.
Outgoing President Barack Obama vowed earlier this year to include an annual $450 million aid package in the 2017 budget to support the peace process.
Crunching the numbers of Obama’s Peace Colombia proposal
However, ahead of the elections, the Republican-dominated Senate has refused to touch Obama’s proposed budget.
Additionally, Trump’s campaign promise to cut foreign aid “across the board” caused unrest in Colombia, which needs more than $30 billion in the coming year to finance programs that seek to effectively address root causes of the country’s drug-fueled political violence.
Giuliani Security and Safety, the former New York mayor’s security firm, has consistently supported Colombia’s peace process and knows the Colombian president personally.
The former New York mayor has also ample experience in Colombia.
According to newspaper El Colombiano, Giuliani worked at the DEA office in Bogota in the 1970s and 1980s and has been an adviser to the Colombian government in terms of public security.
The former New York mayor and the Colombian president visited Medellin in 2015 to launch an operation that sought to counter criminal activity by carrying out operations in the city’s drug dealing hotspots.
The hard-line Giuliani has been tipped by several US media as the country’s new Attorney General.