President Barack Obama received Uruguayan President José Mujica at the White House on Monday, where the two heads of state discussed how to expand trade links and educational exchanges between their two countries. Obama lauded Mujica, who has passed a series of progressive reforms including the legalization -- and government regulation -- of marijuana, for what he described as Mujica’s commitment to democracy and human rights, saying he was “consistently impressed” and calling him a “leader across the hemisphere.” The 78-year-old Mujica was characteristically blunt in many of his remarks, telling Obama, “We need to learn English and you all will have to become bilingual sooner or later.”
“The strength of Latin women is admirable,” he went on, according to El Observador, “and they’re going to fill this continent with people who speak Spanish, and Portuguese too.” He added that in the building of educational links, “we don’t just want to send students, because they get married on us and North American businesses pay better. We want professors.” And Mujica also made reference to his government’s ongoing battles with Philip Morris, the US tobacco company which is currently suing Uruguay for $25 million over a 2009 law requiring that a health warning cover 80 percent of cigarette cartons.
"In the world, eight million people die each year from smoking tobacco," he said. "This is mass murder. We are in an arduous fight, very arduous, and we must fight against very strong [corporate] interests … more people are dying on us than in world wars. In Uruguay we’re in a very tough fight. There’s a fight going on here for life." Left off the agenda for talks between the presidents were two elephants in the room: Mujica’s offer to extend asylum to 4 Syrians and 1 Palestinian currently held as inmates at Guantánamo Bay, and the legalization of marijuana in Uruguay.
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