Argentina

To the authorities of the United Nations, to the representatives of the various countries that make it up, and to all the citizens of the world who may be watching us, good afternoon: for those who don't know, I am not a politician, I am an economist, a liberal libertarian economist, who never had the ambition to go into politics and who was honored with the position of President of the Argentine Republic, in the face of the resounding failure of more than a century of collectivist policies that destroyed our country.

This is my first speech before the United Nations General Assembly, and I want to take the opportunity to - with humility - alert the various nations of the world about the path they have been walking down for decades, and about the danger involved in this organization failing to fulfill its original mission.

I have not come here to tell the world what it has to do; I have come here to tell the world, on the one hand, what will happen if the United Nations continues promoting the collectivist policies it has been promoting under the mandate of the 2030 Agenda, and, on the other hand, what values the new Argentina defends. I do want to begin by giving credit where credit is due. The United Nations was born out of the horror of the bloodiest war in global history, with the primary objective of ensuring it would never happen again. To that end, the organization carved its fundamental principles in stone, in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. There, a basic agreement was set down, around one maxim: that all human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.

Under the tutelage of this organization and the adoption of these ideas - over the last 70 years - humanity experienced the longest period of global peace in history, which also coincided with the period of greatest economic growth in history. An international forum was created, where nations could settle their conflicts through cooperation rather than instantly resorting to weapons, and something unimaginable was achieved: seating the five largest powers in the world permanently at the same table, each with equal veto power, despite having completely opposing interests.

None of this made the scourge of war disappear, but it did achieve - for now - that no conflict escalated to global proportions. The result was that we went from having two world wars in less than 40 years, which together claimed more than 120 million lives, to having 70 consecutive years of relative peace and global stability, under the mantle of an order that allowed the entire world to integrate commercially, compete, and prosper. Because where trade enters, bullets do not - as Bastiat said - because trade guarantees peace, freedom guarantees trade, and equality before the law guarantees freedom.

What was ultimately fulfilled was what the Prophet Isaiah recorded, and what one reads in the park across the street: "He shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people: and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruninghooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore."

This is what has happened - for the most part - under the tutelage of the United Nations, in its first decades, and so, from this perspective, we are talking about a remarkable success in the history of nations that cannot be overlooked. Now then - at some point - and as tends to happen with most of the bureaucratic structures that we humans create, this organization stopped safeguarding the principles outlined in its founding declaration and began to mutate. An organization that had been conceived - essentially - as a shield to protect the Kingdom of Men transformed into a multi-tentacled Leviathan, which seeks to decide not only what each Nation-State must do, but also how every citizen of the world must live. This is how we went from an organization that pursued peace to an organization that imposes an ideological agenda on its members, on a never-ending list of topics that concern the life of man in society.

The United Nations model, which had been successful, whose origins we can trace back to the ideas of President Wilson, who spoke of the "society of peace without victory" and which was based on cooperation among nation-states, has been abandoned; it has been replaced by a model of supranational government by international bureaucrats, who seek to impose upon the world's citizens a determined way of life. What is being discussed - this week, here in New York, at the Summit of the Future - is nothing other than the deepening of that tragic direction which this institution has adopted. Thus, the deepening of a model that - in the words of the Secretary-General of the United Nations himself - requires the definition of a new social contract on a global scale, doubling down on the commitments of the 2030 Agenda.

I want to be clear about the position of the Argentine agenda: the 2030 Agenda, although well-intentioned in its goals, is nothing other than a supranational government program, of a socialist bent, which seeks to resolve the problems of modernity with solutions that undermine the sovereignty of Nation-States and violate the right to life, liberty, and property of individuals. It is an agenda that seeks to solve poverty, inequality, and discrimination with legislation whose only effect is to deepen them. Because the history of the world demonstrates that the only way to guarantee prosperity is by limiting the power of the monarch, guaranteeing equality before the law, and defending the right to life, liberty, and property of individuals.

It has been precisely the adoption of that agenda, which serves privileged interests; the abandonment of the principles - outlined in the United Nations' Universal Declaration of Human Rights - that distorted the role of this institution and put it on the wrong path. Thus, we have seen how an organization that was born to defend the rights of man has been one of the main drivers of the systematic violation of freedom, as - for example - with the global lockdowns during 2020, which should be considered a crime against humanity.

In this very house that claims to defend human rights, they have allowed the entry, into the Human Rights Council, of bloody dictatorships such as those of Cuba and Venezuela, without the slightest reproach. In this very house that claims to defend women's rights, they allow the entry, into the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women, of countries that punish their women for showing their skin. In this very house - systematically - votes have been cast against the State of Israel, the only country in the Middle East that defends liberal democracy, while at the same time it has demonstrated a total inability to respond to the scourge of terrorism. On the economic front, collectivist policies have been promoted that undermine economic growth; violate property rights and hinder the natural economic process, even preventing the world's most disadvantaged countries from freely enjoying their own resources to get ahead. Regulations and prohibitions promoted precisely by the countries that developed by doing exactly what they now condemn. In addition, a toxic relationship has been promoted between global governance policies and international credit organizations, demanding that the most disadvantaged countries commit resources they do not have to programs they do not need, turning them into perpetual debtors in order to advance the agenda of the global elites.

Nor has the tutelage of the World Economic Forum helped, where ridiculous policies with Malthusian blinders are promoted - such as the "Net Zero" policies - which harm, above all, poor countries. Or policies linked to sexual and reproductive rights, when the birth rate of Western countries is collapsing, announcing a bleak future for everyone. Nor has the organization satisfactorily fulfilled its mission of defending the territorial sovereignty of its members, as we Argentines know firsthand, in relation to the Falkland Islands (Malvinas). And we have even arrived at a situation in which the Security Council - the most important organ of this house - has become denatured, because the veto of its permanent members has begun to be used in defense of the particular interests of some.

So here we are today, with an organization that is powerless to provide solutions to the real global conflicts, such as the abhorrent Russian invasion of Ukraine, which has already cost the lives of more than 300,000 people, leaving a trail of more than a million wounded in the process. An organization that, instead of confronting these conflicts, invests time and effort in imposing on poor countries what, how, and how much they must produce, with whom they must engage, what they must eat, and what they must believe, as the current Pact for the Future seeks to dictate. This long list of errors and contradictions has not come without cost, but has resulted in the loss of credibility of the United Nations before the citizens of the free world, and in the denaturing of its functions.

That is why I want to issue a warning: we are facing the end of a cycle. Collectivism and the moral posturing of the woke agenda have collided with reality, and no longer have credible solutions to offer for the real problems of the world. In fact, they never did. If the 2030 Agenda failed - as its own promoters acknowledge - the response should be to ask ourselves whether it wasn't a badly conceived program from the start, to accept that reality, and to change course. One cannot persist in error by doubling down on the bet of an agenda that has failed. It's always the same story with ideas coming from the left: they design a model according to what the human being should be - according to them - and when individuals - freely - act otherwise, their only solution is to restrict, repress, and curtail their freedom.

We - in Argentina - have already seen with our own eyes what lies at the end of this road of envy and sad passions: poverty, degradation, anarchy, and a fatal absence of freedom. We are still in time to turn away from that path.

I want to be clear about something so there is no misinterpretation: Argentina, which is currently living through a profound process of change, has decided to embrace the ideas of freedom; those ideas that say that all citizens are born free and equal before the law, that we have inalienable rights granted by the Creator, among which are the right to life, liberty, and property. Those principles, which order the process of change we are carrying out in Argentina, are also the principles that will guide our international conduct from now on.

We believe in defending the life of all; we believe in defending the property of all; we believe in freedom of expression for all; we believe in freedom of worship for all; we believe in freedom of trade for all, and we believe in limited government, for all.

And since, in these times, what happens in one country quickly impacts others, we believe that all peoples must live free from tyranny and oppression, whether it takes the form of political oppression, economic slavery, or religious fanaticism. That fundamental idea must not remain mere words; it must be backed up in deeds, diplomatically, economically, and materially, through the joint force of all countries that defend freedom.

This doctrine of the new Argentina is nothing more, nor less, than the true essence of the United Nations Organization, that is, the cooperation of the United Nations in defense of freedom. If the United Nations decides to return to the principles that gave it life and to readapt to the role for which it was conceived, count on the unwavering support of Argentina, in the fight for freedom.

Know, also, that Argentina will not support any policy that implies the restriction of individual freedoms, of trade, or the violation of the natural rights of individuals, no matter who promotes it or how much consensus that institution has. For this reason, we want to officially express our dissent regarding the Pact for the Future, signed on Sunday, and we invite all the nations of the free world to join us, not only in dissenting from this pact, but in creating a new agenda for this noble institution: the agenda of freedom.

From this day forward, know that the Argentine Republic will abandon the position of historic neutrality that characterized us and will be at the forefront of the fight in defense of freedom. Because - as Thomas Paine said - "those who desire to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it."

May God bless the Argentines and all the citizens of the world, and may the forces of heaven be with us.

Long live freedom, damn it! Thank you very much.