While solemnly eulogizing Carlos Holmes Trujillo, Colombia’s defense minister who succumbed to COVID-19 last week, President Duque said “Así lo vi, así lo conocí, así lo querí” which when corrected would translate as “That’s how I saw him, that’s how I knew him, that’s how I loved him.” Querer is a Spanish verb that generally translates as “to want” but is also used informally as “to love,” in the familial, romantic, and fraternal senses. The correct usage of the verb in the President’s instance would have been “quise”— an error often made by foreign learners of Spanish but surprising coming from a native and experienced Spanish speaker.

In a politically divided country where the President already suffers from low approval ratings and struggles to stand outside of the shadow of his pollical patron, former President Alvaro Uribe, Colombians were quick to lambast Duque on social networks, and in the Colombian media. KFC thought they would join in on the fun by posting a tweet and accompanying video saying:

“When the #KFC chick arrives at your house…you can only say #asiloqueri #HappyFriday.”

Both were quickly removed but not before other users were able to save the media.

 

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Many users, especially from Duque’s Centro Democratico political party lashed out at KFC,

Se me hace de mal gusto señores de @kfccolombia . Que se presten a la burla de la mayor autoridad del país . A raíz de una equivocacion que es de humanos. Gracias.

— Juan camilo cubillos (@camilo_cf75) January 28, 2021

while others who oppose Duque said they would now be ordering KFC on the weekend.

Genios. Este fin de semana como KFC ?

— Daniela Mercado Mendoza (@danielamercadom) January 28, 2021

The global fast food chain has no problem ridiculing the politicians in other countries, such as in this image of US Senator Bernie Sanders, but for whatever reason found Broasting* Duque for his gaffe too hot to handle and chickened out.

Así como cuando te niegas a compartir tu pollito de #KFC #BernieSanders #Memes #FelizViernes pic.twitter.com/ygB8U3DkDU

— KFC COLOMBIA OFICIAL (@kfccolombia) January 22, 2021

*Broasting is the technique of deep frying under pressure commonly used for fried chicken by restaurant brands such as KFC, Chick-fil-A, McDonalds & Wendy’s. It requires specialized commercial equipment and for the sake of safety must not be attempted at home or with consumer equipment.

What should KFC have done? Feel free to comment below.

Photo: Carlos Holmes, foreign affairs minister of Colombia, announces the nation’s decision to withdraw from UNASUR. (Credit: Presidencia de la República)

The move came as part of a larger governmental announcement about Colombia’s international relations focus that included the intention to “implement a new border policy,” which new Foreign Affairs Minister Carlos Holmes Trujillo called a “fundamental part of the country’s foreign policy.”

In making the decision, Duque became the first head of state to fully withdraw his nation from the South American union, which was founded in 2008 and entered into force as a treaty in 2011 to better align cross-border collaboration in key areas such as trade, defense, energy, healthcare, education, and combatting the drug trade.

In April, Colombia, Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Peru, and Paraguay all suspended their membership in an organization that faced ongoing disagreements over both leadership structure and how to handle relations with Venezuela.

At the time, an unnamed Peruvian diplomat told Reuters that the differences between UNASUR “members’ political and economic views are so great it can no longer operate.”

Holmes said Colombia will continue to push for democratic solutions to the ongoing crisis in Venezuela that will allow the nation’s citizens to choose their own future in “free, transparent processes with full guarantees that they government should have.”

Rather than continue with UNASUR, Holmes said that Colombia will focus on participating “proactively — not passively or reactively — in multilateral scenarios.”

This will come to pass, he said, through an increased push to elevate relations with countries in Asia, Africa, and Oceana, as well as strengthen deep ties with the United States and European Union.

Holmes added that Colombia will prepose a “relaunch” of the Organization of American States (OAS), the hemisphere-wide body that includes members from Canada to Argentina and had been criticized by certain left-leaning leaders in South America in the lead up to the creation of UNASUR for having too much influence from the United States.

Colombia will also work to strengthen to Pacific Alliance, which in recent years has grown into one of the strongest trade blocs in Latin America. Colombia is joined by Mexico, Chile, and Peru in the alliance, with Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and Singapore recently becoming formal observer states in an expansion plan that will broaden its global reach.

Other foreign relations priorities under Duque, said Holmes, will include an effort to negotiate an end to the double taxation burden with more countries, combat corruption more systematically on the international level, improve support services in Colombian embassies abroad, and promote creative industries across borders.

To emphasize the final point, Colombia plans to organize the First World Congress of Orange Economy, a term now popularly used to describe a collection of creative fields that includes everything from software and video game development to filmmaking, fashion, and graphic design.

The eleventh-hour foreign policy change, which was reportedly formalized through a letter sent from former foreign affairs minister María Ángela Holguín to Palestinian representatives in Colombia, only came to light this week following the inauguration of new President Iván Duque on April 7.

Carlos Holmes Trujillo, the nation’s new foreign affairs minister under Duque, acknowledged that the recognition had been formally made by the outgoing government. But Holmes added that the new administration “will carefully examine” the implications of the decision and “act in accordance with international law.”

Israeli foreign ministry spokesman Emmanuel Nahshon responding to the news by saying that “we are surprised about the report in the media, and are waiting to receive explanations from the new government, which is looking into the matter.”

In a statement, the Israeli embassy in Colombia asked the Andean nation to “reverse the decision,” expressing that it was both “surprised and very disappointed by the decision of the previous government to recognize Palestine as a state.”

If Duque does not reverse the decision, Colombia will become the final nation in South America to recognize the state of Palestine, which declared its independence in 1988. The United Nations has long recognized Palestine’s independence, and now so too do 136 of the 192 U.N. member countries.

Cuba became the first Latin American country to recognize Palestine in 1988 on the day after it declared. The Latin American wave of recognition did not come until later, with Paraguay following suit in 2005, Costa Rica in 2008, and several more in the subsequent years, including Venezuela, Brazil, Argentina — and, in time, every other South American country except for Colombia.

Colombia is a staunch ally of the United States, which along with much of Western Europe, Canada, and Australia, is one of the countries that does not recognize Palestine as a state.

READ MORE: Iván Duque Takes Office in a Divided Nation with a Recovering Economy

But relations between the two nations have been strained under the President Donald Trump administration, which has chastised Colombia for its surge in the production of coca, the main ingredient used to make cocaine.

Nikki Haley, the U.S. ambassador to the United States, was in Colombia when the revelation of Santos’ act became public. She was in the country to attend the inauguration of Duque and also announced that the United States would commit an additional $9 million USD in humanitarian aid for Venezuelans now residing in Colombia after fleeing the ongoing economic and social crisis in their homeland.