Liberal billionaire and philanthropist George Soros‘s Foundation to Promote Open Society quietly helped fund a recent trip by House Democrats to meet with left-wing Latin American leaders in several foreign countries, documents show.
Reps. Maxwell Frost (D-FL), Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), Greg Casar (D-TX), Nydia Velazquez (D-NY), and Joaquin Castro (D-TX) traveled between Aug. 13 and 21 to Brazil, Colombia, and Chile to hobnob with Chilean President Gabriel Boric, Colombian President Gustavo Petro, and Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva’s advisers “to forge a new diplomatic relationship between the United States and Latin America.” The delegation was organized by the liberal think tank Center for Economic and Policy Research and also co-sponsored by FPOC, a private foundation Soros founded in 2008, according to financial disclosures filed by the lawmakers to Congress.
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“This socialist pilgrimage masquerading as a congressional junket shows where extreme Democrats draw their inspiration: From left-wing lunatics abroad, not the greatest country on Earth,” Jack Pandol, communications director for the National Republican Congressional Committee, which works to elect GOP lawmakers, told the Washington Examiner.
The trip organizers shelled out tens of thousands of dollars on meals, lodging, and travel for the Democrats, records show, including $6,600 on Frost, the Washington Free Beacon reported. Three people from the Soros group joined the delegation at meetings and dinners.
Ocasio-Cortez was joined on the trip by her boyfriend Riley Roberts, and listed him as a “spouse,” her disclosure shows. A sponsor post-travel form shows Ocasio-Cortez’s $4,955 in transportation expenses were paid for, as well as $1,545 in lodging and $813 in meal expenses.
Last year, Lula, Petro, and Boric won their respective elections, in what the press branded as a “pink tide” of left-wing political victories. Alex Soros, the son of George Soros who recently was elected president of the family’s Open Society Foundations grant-making network, met in 2023 with Lula da Silva “to advocate for issues related to the family foundation,” the Wall Street Journal reported.
Mary Anastasia O’Grady, a Wall Street Journal columnist, notably in August dubbed the trip Ocasio-Cortez’s “socialist sympathy tour,” and took aim at the congresswoman’s comments that the U.S. has “much to learn from our counterparts in these countries, including how to confront disinformation and violent threats to our democracies.”
FPOC helped support the trip due to its “mission to foster greater interest from members of Congress on U.S-Latin America relations,” according to a disclosure filed by Renata Beca-Barragan, legislative director to Velázquez. The cohort of lawmakers held meetings with activist groups and government officials in Brazil on racial equality, the “climate crisis,” workers’ rights, and other issues, documents show.
The House Democrats in Chile discussed various issues with Boric, including Chile’s lithium industry, according to filings, which described how the Colombia trip involved meetings with Petro on “the U.S.-Colombia security relationship” and “the role Colombia can play on hemispheric foreign policy issues,” among other topics.
The three Latin American leaders have come under fire from American lawmakers over their radical positions and ties. In July, Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar (R-FL) said in a congressional hearing on Colombia’s “descent to socialism” that “Petro’s corrupt leftist policies have created a bleak future for Colombia.”
The president is a former member of the criminal M-19 Colombian urban guerrilla group, and his son, Nicolas Petro, was charged in July with alleged money laundering and illicit enrichment over pocketing cash from drug traffickers to purchase cars and swanky homes.
Brazil’s Lula da Silva attracted controversy in April upon alleging that the U.S. was “stimulating” the fighting with regard to the Russia-Ukraine war, and suggesting Ukraine should cede Crimea, a peninsula that Russia took over in 2014. Meanwhile, Boric has voiced support for the Palestinian-led Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement against Israel and likened Israel’s treatment of Palestinians to “genocide.”
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Spokespeople for Ocasio-Cortez, Frost, Casar, Velazquez, and Castro did not reply to requests for comment.
The Foundation to Promote Open Society did not reply either.
