This past weekend in Barcelona, Spain, Connecticut Senator Chris Murphy and Minnesota Governor Tim Walz took the stage alongside Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, Brazilian President Lula da Silva, Colombian President Gustavo Petro, and Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum at a summit their organizers titled, without apparent irony, the “Global Progressive Mobilisation forum” in defense of democracy. The event was marketed as a progressive counterpart to President Donald Trump’s Shield of the Americas meeting in Miami last month. In reality, the leftist meeting was a gallery of leaders who have destroyed the very democratic institutions they now claim to champion, and all oppose the interests of the United States.
Two elected American Democrats flew across the Atlantic to lend their credibility to that anti-American gallery. They should be asked to explain it.
Start with the host. Pedro Sánchez leads a government engulfed in the worst corruption crisis since Spain’s return to democracy. His wife has been formally charged with influence peddling and corruption. His brother is on trial in a separate case because he was given a government job he didn’t show up for by Socialist officials in his brother’s party. His former right-hand man is also on trial over alleged kickbacks on public contracts and prostitution. His attorney general has himself been convicted of leaking confidential information. None of this stopped Sánchez from lecturing the world about the dangers of the “populist right.”
But the worst part of Sanchez for America is not his internal destruction of Spain, but that he prohibited the United States from using the two American military bases in the country during the military conflict with Iran. An American senator and a sitting governor saw all of this and decided it was a good look to support him.
Next to Sánchez stood Lula da Silva. Lula was convicted of corruption and money laundering by a Brazilian court in 2017, had the conviction upheld and the sentence increased on appeal in 2018, and served nearly 600 days in prison. His convictions were later annulled on procedural grounds, but he was never acquitted on the merits. He is no doubt guilty. He returned to the presidency and has spent the last three years fast-tracking Brazil’s descent into tyranny with an allied Supreme Court that censors social media and has imprisoned his main political opponent, former President Jair Bolsonaro. But Murphy and Waltz pretend to lecture us about democracy.
Next up was Gustavo Petro, Colombia’s president and a former member of the M-19, a Marxist guerrilla group whose career highlights included the 1985 seizure of Colombia’s Palace of Justice, during which 11 Supreme Court justices were killed. Petro aligned his government with former Venezuelan narco-tyrant Nicolás Maduro. Testimony from Venezuela’s former military intelligence chief, Hugo “El Pollo” Carvajal, alleges that Chávez and Maduro financed Petro’s presidential campaigns. A U.S. senator sharing a dais with him is not a defense of democracy; it is an act of diplomatic malpractice.
Finally, there was Claudia Sheinbaum, who implemented a constitutional overhaul that ended judicial independence in Mexico. In June 2025, Mexico became the only country on Earth to have its population elect all federal judges, including the Supreme Court. Turnout at that constitutional referendum was 13 percent. This is not democracy; it is the dictatorship of the majority, something the American Founders warned about. Of course, Tim Waltz and Chris Murphy must enthusiastically support this because it aligns with their agenda to pack the U.S. Supreme Court to change the meaning of the Constitution.
Perhaps the best part of the “Progressive” Defense of Democracy meeting in Barcelona last Saturday was that the actual citizens of Latin America didn’t care for them. While these wannabe leftist tyrants met in Barcelona, tens of thousands of Venezuelan immigrants were rallying in support of democracy in Spain’s capital, Madrid. They were there in support of a transition in Venezuela that is possible thanks to the support of the United States and President Trump’s military action to arrest Nicolas Maduro.
Truthfully, I would have expected a speech and support for this anti-American meeting from the likes of Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Senator Bernie Sanders, or a video message by New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, but I did not expect Murphy and Walz to lend credibility to this meeting of criminals. Murphy is often mentioned as a 2028 presidential contender. Walz was the Democratic vice-presidential nominee. When they stand with these leaders and call it a defense of democracy, they are telling American voters something important about what they believe democracy looks like.
Daniel Di Martino (@DanielDiMartino) is a fellow at the Manhattan Institute and an economist.
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