Peru’s President, Son of Jewish Refugee, Tells Trump He Prefers ‘Bridges To Walls’
Peruvian presidential candidate Pedro Pablo Kuczynski for ‘Peruanos por el Kambio’ (Peruvians for Change), makes a victory announcement to the press in Lima on June 9, 2016. Image by Getty Images
RIO DE JANEIRO (JTA) — The president of Peru, whose father was a Jewish refugee who fled the Nazis, told U.S. President Donald Trump during a visit at the White House that he prefers “bridges to walls.”
Peruvian President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, born in Lima to a French Protestant mother and German Jewish father who fled the Nazis in 1933, gave Trump a gentle rebuke of his controversial proposal to build a wall along the border with Mexico, reported the Washington Post.
Kuczynski on Friday became the first Latin American president to visit Trump in Washington.
The U.S.-educated former Wall Street banker, who renounced his American citizenship to run for Peru’s presidency last June, took a strong stand against Trump’s “America First” agenda while many in the region remain silent.
Kuczynski, 78, told Trump he was interested in the free movement of people — “legally,” he emphasized.
Kuczynski harshly criticized Trump during the U.S. presidential campaign, joking he would cut diplomatic relations with the U.S. “with a saw” if Trump followed through on his pledge to build a wall with Mexico, which he compared to the Berlin Wall.
A message from our Publisher & CEO Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.
We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.
If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
