Chuck Ross of the Washington Free Beacon reports interesting background information about a recent trek south of the border.
The liberal billionaire George Soros’s philanthropy quietly funded a junket last month for five House Democrats to meet with left-wing Latin American leaders in what conservatives have derided as a “socialist sympathy tour.”
Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D., N.Y.), Maxwell Frost (D., Fla.), Greg Casar (D., Texas), Nydia Velázquez (D., N.Y.), and Joaquín Castro (D., Texas) traveled to Brazil, Colombia, and Chile last month as part of a trip organized by the Center for Economic and Policy Research, a left-wing think tank. The delegation met with Colombian president Gustavo Petro, Chilean president Gabriel Boric, and advisers to Brazil’s Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva to “strengthen diplomatic relations” between the House and Latin American leaders.
Financial disclosures submitted to Congress this week revealed that Soros’s Foundation to Promote Open Society provided a grant to the Center for Economic and Policy Research for the junket. According to Frost’s disclosure, the organizers spent around $6,600 on his travel, lodging, and meals. Six congressional aides accompanied the five House Democrats on the trip. Three members of Soros’s foundation accompanied the delegation at dinners and meetings, according to Frost’s disclosure. The four other House members have yet to submit their disclosures for the trip.
Some conservatives criticized the trip as an attempt by liberal lawmakers to hatch a global progressive movement. Ocasio-Cortez drew criticism after she called on the United States to apologize for “the harms we’ve committed through interventionist and extractive policies” in Latin America. A Wall Street Journal columnist panned the junket as a “socialist sympathy tour,” given Ocasio-Cortez’s remarks and the leftist leanings of the foreign hosts.
Lula, Petro, and Boric were elected last year as part of what has been dubbed a “pink wave” of socialist and left-wing leaders in Latin America. Soros, through his Open Society Foundations, supports left-wing civic groups in each of the countries and is a longtime Lula ally.
