Guatemalans want 'trade, not aid', Sara Carter reports
Sara Carter reports from Guatemala on 'Hannity'
In an exclusive report for "Hannity," investigative journalist Sara Carter traveled to Guatemala City, as Vice President Harris was also visiting the Northern Triangle country, and reported that the Guatemalan people do not trust Joe Biden and do not want American taxpayer-funded aid, which they believe will simply add to the corruption in the nation's government and the might of the already-powerful trafficking cartels.
Carter told host Sean Hannity she spoke to people both in Guatemala City – the capital – and San Rafael, a town farther to the west near Quetzaltenango.
"They can tell you they don't trust the United States, they don't trust the funding coming to Guatemala," Carter said of the people in San Rafael. "They say that it's 30 years of a broken system that just aids and abets nothing more than the drug cartels and human traffickers and crime and corruption inside the city."
People in the capital city of Guatemala were no less amused by Harris' visit, where Carter witnessed civilian activists and other constituencies coming together to protest the Vice President's arrival and her meeting with President Alejandro Giammattei.
"They belonged to civilian groups, citizen groups, NGOs, saying that they wanted trade, not aid. They did not want to be bribed," she said.
The groups' concern in Guatemala City was largely that the millions to trillions in aid the Biden administration plans to send to the country in an attempt to quell the migrant crisis likely won't be fruitful.
One fear the citizens expressed was that funds allocated to "anti-corruption" agencies could be used to empower those bureaucracies to instead target political opponents and dissidents.
Carter said they feel that the commissions where the money is being allocated could be weaponized and used against political opponents.
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"This is a very tough time in Guatemala. This is a tough time in Central America. What they are hoping for is some bilateral talks that actually bring trade back to Central America so that we can see and stop the influx of people; migrants leaving this part of the world for the United States," Carter said.
"They say they are very concerned about this but they're not going to be able to resolve the problem unless the United States tells the truth and faces the facts, and comes to terms with what's happening here in the region."
Recently, Guatemala has been one of the jumping-off points for migrants seeking to transit through Mexico to the United States, at entry points such as Tecun Uman, where they often cross the Suchiate River into the Mexican state of Chiapas.