The San Carlos Declaration

Bogotá, 25 January

PART I

Reaffirming the purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations, including the sovereign equality of states, the prohibition on the use of force, and the sacred right of all peoples to self-determination,

Recognizing these as the principles that animated Simón Bolívar in his struggle for a free continent, José de San Martín in his vision of an independent and sovereign Americas, Benito Juárez in pursuit of lasting peace between its nations, and Jose Martí in his call to defend it from imperialist intervention;

Stressing that the present international conjuncture is marked by the erosion of those principles, as reactionary forces rise to reassert US domination over its neighboring nations and beyond through coercion, manipulation, and military intervention;

Alarmed that this project has been articulated explicitly under the banner of a revived Monroe Doctrine and a new “Trump Corollary,” which asserts the Americas as an exclusive sphere of control and treats sovereignty, democracy, and international law as impediments rather than obligations;

Noting with grave concern that this doctrine has already been operationalized through concrete acts, including but not limited to:

• Financial intervention in Argentina aimed at conditioning economic policy and constraining democratic choice;
• Electoral intervention in Honduras, including the pardon of convicted narco-dictator Juan Orlando Hernández and the campaign to appoint the National Party to the presidency;
• Military intervention in Venezuela through a campaign of bombing in the capital Caracas that claimed civilian lives and 32 Cuban combatants who bravely and honorably confronted the hostile intervention of the United States and defended the kidnapping of Nicolás Maduro and Cilia Flores;
• Strikes on civilian vessels in the Caribbean Sea and Pacific, carried out without due process and resulting in the extrajudicial killing of over one hundred fishermen and boat crews;
• The unprecedented intensification of the economic, commercial and financial blockade and the increase in threats against Cuba with the objective of overthrowing the Revolution;
• Expansionist designs on Greenland, where demands for its acquisition by the United States pay no heed to the sovereignty of its people or to their right of self-determination;
• Systematic violation of the political, civil, and social rights of the more than fifty million migrants living in the United States—overwhelmingly of Latin American origin—who are subjected to detention, expulsion, and repression by state authorities, including the Department of Homeland Security and Immigration and Customs Enforcement;
• Persistent threats and political attacks directed against the sovereign and democratic government of Mexico, led by its first woman president, Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo, aimed at discrediting a project of social transformation and undermining the dignity and self-determination of the Mexican people;
• Support for lawfare as a weapon of political persecution, deployed against political leaders advancing sovereignty and regional integration, such as Lula Da Silva, Rafael Correa, and Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, including international escalation with OFAC sanctions against Gustavo Petro.

Recognizing that this escalation constitutes not only an unprecedented threat to the peoples of the Americas, but also a direct menace to the universal principle of self-determination, whose selective application undermines its validity everywhere;

Recalling the observation of President Gustavo Petro that Israel’s genocide of the Palestinian people in Gaza was but a premonition for all peoples who refuse subjugation, demonstrating how unchecked violations of international law migrate from one region to another;

Affirming therefore that signatories from within and beyond the Americas join this Declaration in the conviction that the defense of hemispheric sovereignty is inseparable from the defense of international law globally, and that only coordinated international solidarity can halt the present trajectory toward expanded imperial violence.

PART II

Affirming that collective action among sovereign states and their peoples is the only strategy capable of withstanding an assault organized under the Monroe Doctrine, and that fragmentation remains the principal condition upon which domination depends;

Recognizing that the contemporary instruments of coercion rarely present themselves as war alone, but as a composite of financial pressure, unilateral coercive measures, information warfare, punitive restrictions on trade and energy, calibrated diplomatic isolation and systematic assaults on workers and the trade union movement—designed to erode legitimacy, exhaust public capacity, and compel political outcomes;

Recognizing that universal access to quality public services—including education, health and social care, energy, water, and sanitation—is a necessary condition for a functional, equitable, and stable democracy, and that these services are essential to breaking the cycles of structural, social, and economic inequality that erode democratic participation and popular sovereignty;

Observing that the current United States administration has pursued a deliberate strategy of division through intimidation, coercion, and isolation, including financial sanctions, trade restrictions, energy blockades, and diplomatic pressure intended to fracture regional cooperation and impose outcomes from abroad;

Underscoring that no nation acting alone can reliably withstand the pressure exerted by the world’s largest military and financial apparatus, but that through cooperation nations can build the autonomy, resilience, and shared capacity necessary to endure and to develop under adverse geopolitical conditions;

Recalling that the peoples of the Americas have repeatedly advanced their freedom and stability when they have acted in concert, including in resistance to colonial legacies such as the continuing occupation of the Malvinas, and through the creation of regional and subregional mechanisms that expanded policy space, strengthened mutual support, and reduced exposure to external tutelage;

Recalling in particular the establishment of the South American Defense Council within UNASUR as an effort to develop regional coordination, confidence-building, and sovereign defense dialogue on the basis of non-intervention, thereby reducing dependence on doctrines, training pathways, and security architectures historically shaped by the United States, including those associated with the School of the Americas;

Recalling also the creation of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) as a forum for Latin American and Caribbean multilateralism without external tutelage, providing a space for political coordination and common positions independent of the United States-dominated Organization of American States, in service of the region’s aspiration to be a Zone of Peace;

Recognizing that these experiences demonstrate a central lesson for the present conjuncture, namely that sovereignty is not preserved by isolation, but by deliberate cooperation that converts shared vulnerability into shared strength and transforms geographic proximity into political solidarity;

Emphasizing that intergovernmental coordination, while indispensable, will remain insufficient without the popular power of social movements, peoples organisations, trade unions, and youth—whose creativity and collective action shape the horizons of democracy— to defend sovereignty and advance the interests of the working class and also the emergence of a renewed solidarity movement within the Global North, capable of rejecting complicity, contesting militarism, and affirming in public institutions and civic life that aggression and coercion will not be carried out in its name;

Recognizing that this popular power depends on the capacity to think, learn, and act together, and that the production of critical knowledge, political education, and shared analysis is an essential dimension of any project of democratic transformation;

Stressing therefore that the strategy of Nuestra América must be understood as simultaneously diplomatic, economic, civic, popular, social and cultural: a common front that strengthens collective resilience, defends democratic choice and human rights from external coercion, and restores the primacy of international law through coordinated action across borders.

PART III

We, the delegates at the inaugural convening of Nuestra América in Bogotá, Colombia, affirm the shared horizon of: a hemisphere that governs itself, defends its peoples, and speaks in its own voice.

To advance that project, we hereby commit to a common strategy to resist coercion, build autonomy through democracy and integration, and project Nuestra América as a force for sovereignty among nations and solidarity among peoples.

To resist coercion, we commit to:

1. Pursue coordinated engagement in multilateral forums, including the United Nations and its specialized agencies, to uphold the Charter, defend the prohibition on the use or threat of force, and resist efforts to normalize unilateral coercive actions.
2. Establish mechanisms for enhanced hemispheric coordination and mutual support in response to sanctions, blockades, destabilization efforts, and sudden economic shocks, including the identification of shared needs, best practices, and pathways for cooperation.
3. Advance solidarity and affirm sovereignty across the hemisphere—from Cuba to Venezuela, from Mexico to Colombia and beyond—by expanding medical, food, energy, and disaster-response cooperation; by developing collective approaches to mitigate the civilian impact of unilateral coercive measures; and by affirming that no challenge in our region will be met with invasion or militarized coercion, but with dialogue and cooperative, rights-based approaches to shared regional challenges.
4. Support the documentation and analysis of coercion and disinformation, including unilateral measures, covert interference, and information warfare, in order to inform diplomatic engagement, legal strategies, and public understanding.
5. Encourage collaboration among legal experts and institutions to share jurisprudence, assess avenues for legal challenge, and explore coordinated responses to unlawful coercion and extraterritorial enforcement.
6. Defend the rights of Latin American migrants in the United States, oppose mass deportations, and advance the conditions of peace, prosperity, and democratic development in our region.
7. Defend workers' rights by promoting trade union and labor rights, including the right to organize, collective bargaining, and strike in our region so that no worker is forced to leave their homeland in search of dignity elsewhere.

To reassert our independence, we commit to:

1. Strengthen regional dialogue on the protection of democratic processes, including the exchange of experiences on electoral accompaniment, safeguards for civic participation, and diplomatic responses to external interference or intimidation.
2. Examine options for greater financial and trade autonomy, including regional clearing arrangements, contingency payment channels, and expanded South–South trade cooperation, with the aim of reducing exposure to political and economic coercion.
3. Promote cooperation on energy and food sovereignty and the strengthening of public services by sharing information and exploring joint approaches to strategic reserves, public procurement and provision, infrastructure investment, public ownership, and sustainable agricultural production in the service of ecological development.
4. Revitalize regional integration efforts by exchanging experiences, identifying areas of convergence, and pursuing cooperative initiatives that enhance collective bargaining power, protect public goods, and expand policy space.

To strengthen Nuestra América, we commit to:

1. Sustain a living process of coordination among governments, movements, political forces, trade unions, and peoples, deepening this dialogue through convenings, shared initiatives, and ongoing channels of cooperation seeking to advance towards a citizenship of the Americas with guaranteed rights.
2. Expand alliances with international resistance movements and foster dialogue with peoples of the Global North aimed at challenging complicity with aggression, opposing profiteering from coercion and war, and promoting adherence to international law and peaceful coexistence.
3. Convene the next Nuestra América to Havana, Cuba, calling all peoples of the world to stand in solidarity with the Cuban people and their enduring struggle for the defence of their sovereignty and self-determination against US American designs and threats.

In this spirit — and in the face of great dangers — we will forge a future for the Americas that fosters unity, sovereignty, and peace over fear, violence, and foreign domination.