Address by the President of the Republic, José Antonio Kast, before the 81st General Assembly of the United Nations (UN) New York, United Nations 22 September 2026 Mr. Secretary-General, Mr. President of the General Assembly, Ladies and Gentlemen Heads of State and Government, distinguished Delegates: Sixty-four years ago, in this very forum, the then President of Chile, Jorge Alessandri, described our country as a long and narrow land, stretched between the Andes and the Pacific, as far as the moving immensity of Antarctica.
That land is still there. What has changed is the world around it. And what has changed, above all, is Chile. During much of the 1990s and the early 2000s, Chile was a success story and a model for many nations.
Our country implemented economic policies that prioritized macroeconomic stability, trade openness, and private investment. In the Latin American context, where many nations were facing inflationary and external debt crises, Chile stood out for maintaining responsible fiscal management, high growth rates, and poverty reduction.
What happened afterwards? Chile stagnated. Chile made bad decisions. Public policies were promoted that increased taxes, regulations, and obstacles to entrepreneurship.
We also went through a very hard moment, in October 2019. Chile broke down and, for months, an outbreak of violence took hold in our streets, where chaos reigned and disorder prevailed. All of the above brought consequences. Investment left. Employment stagnated. Homicidal violence climbed to levels Chile had not known in its modern history, due to the advance of organized crime. Until now.
Distinguished Delegates, I have come to this forum to tell you that Chile is back. And it is not a slogan. It is the confirmation of a country that is now beginning to move toward development. Our government started from one conviction: order is not contrary to freedom. Order is one of the conditions of freedom. Freedom to return home calmly and not be a victim of organized crime. Freedom to undertake and not be hindered by the action of the State. Freedom to invest and not face the continual changing of the rules of the game.
We have been in office for six months, and we are putting the house in order. Today Chile is a safer country, a more competitive country, and a country with less bureaucracy.
A safer country In Chile, in the first half of this year, the homicide rate registered a decline of 11.5%, and we are approaching the levels we had before the pandemic.
Our borders are more controlled. With the Border Shield Plan, we have reduced irregular entry by 86%; 50% more people have been expelled than in the previous year. Along those lines, we have promoted the Santiago Agreement, on security matters, bringing together several South American countries so that we can coordinate effectively when combating transnational organized crime. The task is not finished; it is only just beginning. A safer country is a country with greater confidence. Where there is confidence, there is more growth, employment, and investment.
A more competitive country Just a few weeks ago, Chile approved the most important economic reform of recent decades. We approved the reduction of the corporate tax from 27% to 23%, a tax that, since 1990, had only been going up. In addition, tax invariability was established for twenty years for large investments, we temporarily exempted home purchases from taxes, and we opened a path toward the repatriation of capital.
Chile is a country with less bureaucracy. We are dismantling the so-called “permitology,” that hidden bureaucracy that prevents projects from moving forward. In six months, investment applications for more than 44 billion dollars have been submitted to be evaluated by the Environmental Evaluation System. More than 33 billion dollars have been approved, in projects that had been waiting for years. More than 17 billion dollars have been unblocked, in the environmental decision-making stages.
Facts and not words Concrete actions that are changing Chile’s course and orienting us ever more toward development. And although the economy has not yet taken off and unemployment, which causes anguish to thousands of families, remains high, change is going to come. Results take time, but the reforms that structure the future are already under way.
That is the difference between a leadership that knows where it is going and one that only reacts without any direction at all. After the storm, the sun always comes out.
After winter, spring always arrives. And after years of stagnation Chile is back. There are many reasons that explain how we got here, but there is only one path for Chile to take off again. Unity. Unity among all those who defend freedom and who want to see the people of Chile progress. There are many things that separate us between right and left, but we are united by the will for Chile to grow again and be a safe country.
Distinguished Delegates, to those listening to us from the world of investment I say: choose Chile for investment. You will find rules that do not change overnight, courts that function, contracts that are honored, and a State willing to facilitate investment. Chile understands that, in a multipolar world, institutional stability is not a luxury, it is a necessity. We are, for example, a key actor in the energy transition.
Chile possesses close to a quarter of the world’s lithium reserves and we are the leading producer of copper on the planet. Chile has intense sunlight, a long Pacific Ocean coastline, lakes, rivers and volcanoes, which can generate impressive energy. Chile also has the Strait of Magellan, an indispensable alternative for world trade. Our nation will become the bridge and the port of the bioceanic corridors that will connect the Americas with Asia.
That wealth is not only our good fortune: it is our responsibility to you. Chile does not renounce its sovereignty, and at the same time affirms that the minerals and energy of the future must serve humanity, and not remain hostage to monopolies or to actors that do not abide by the rules. And let no one be mistaken: it is possible and necessary to reconcile growth with sustainability. They are inseparable.
Chile understands that environmental protection and economic progress form part of one and the same development strategy, in which investment and innovation are essential to improving people’s quality of life. Sustainable development requires solid institutions, clear rules, timely decisions and effective management capable of turning commitments and assessments into concrete results for people and the environment.
Mr. President, I now want to speak of our continent, Latin America, because I sincerely believe that the next decade can be ours. For the first time in a long time, Latin American Governments are truly coordinating. Not only through communiqués, but by getting to know one another and coordinating in order to generate concrete action against transnational organized crime, migration control, and forging opportunities for joint development.
Latin America is the continent of the future and those of us who lead the continent today are prepared to drive that change. Relations with our neighboring countries Peru, Bolivia and Argentina are at a good moment. And we are resuming our relations with Venezuela. Under new leadership, doors have been opened that were closed for many years. Some will tell us not to recognize that change. Others will tell us to align ourselves unconditionally with it. Chile does neither one thing nor the other.
We recognize reality as it is, we value change where it exists, and we offer support. We consider that Venezuela has before it a historic opportunity to reconnect with its best democratic traditions, with its institutions, with its millions of sons and daughters scattered across our continent who dream of returning. That path will be demanding, and Chile expresses its willingness and wants to provide the help they require at every step.
After two decades of tensions, Latin America wants this story to end well.
Distinguished Delegates: This Assembly cannot remain indifferent in the face of the wars and conflicts taking place in the world. These open conflicts not only threaten the stability of various regions, but harm the entire world. Chile, like several countries represented in this room, imports practically all the oil it consumes and has been directly affected by the various wars.
That is not abstract geopolitics: it is expressed in the cost of bread, transport and harvests. It is inflation that does not subside, rates that do not come down, investment that is postponed and employment that is not created. Entire countries that were taking off have returned to stagnation because of wars they did not provoke and cannot stop. Therefore Chile’s call is direct: the wars must cease. War not only bleeds dry those who fight, but impoverishes the rest of the world. We all lose from wars and we have already lost too much.
The United Nations has a role to play and it must do so with the character and energy that to this day it has not shown.
Distinguished Delegates, and here I come to the most uncomfortable thing I have come to state, this Organization has not been equal to the challenges of our times. It is not only a problem of leadership, present or future, but also a problem of action.
The United Nations over recent decades and for different reasons has not been part of the solution to these problems. It is not possible to keep the world order of 1945 in force in a world of 2026. An architecture has been built that deliberates excessively and acts slowly. A Security Council that reflects the political landscape of 1945 and not the reality of 2026. A bureaucracy that grows inward, as in many countries.
A proliferation of agendas that, however noble they may seem, have ended up displacing that which this Organization committed itself to do in its founding Charter: maintain peace, protect life and defend the freedom of peoples. Chile believes in the United Nations, and believing in it implies demanding that it fulfill its mandate.
We propose three things: (1) Reduce bureaucracy and concentrate the budget where lives are at stake; (2) suspend agendas that are not priorities, in order to restore focus to those that are; (3) reform the Security Council, not as a symbolic gesture, but as a condition for its decisions to once again be respected. Chile signed the Charter in San Francisco and has not been absent from any of its causes.
This is demonstrated, today itself, by our commitment to the High Seas Treaty, known as BBNJ, and the candidacy of Valparaíso to host its Executive Secretariat, making it, if successful, the first United Nations body with universal membership headquartered in Latin America. And this candidacy genuinely commands a national agreement among the different sectors.
That is exactly the multilateralism we believe in: concrete, ambitious, and capable of showing results. Effective and efficient multilateralism. And allow me to say why this reform can no longer continue to wait. While we discuss how to modernize institutions created in 1945, the most powerful technology humanity has ever built is emerging, and no one is governing it. Artificial intelligence is not only a technical matter that we can delegate to experts. It is an ethical challenge and it is also a geopolitical issue.
Chile rejects the false dilemma between innovation and responsibility. We do not believe that moving faster is always moving better, and neither are we going to renounce opportunities out of fear. For our country, artificial intelligence may mean growth of 10% or 20% for our economy. That is why we chose a path we call responsible pace: advancing as fast as our capacity to manage what we advance can. Enabling regulation, not prohibitive regulation. Investment in talent, in computing, and in energy. And rigorous evaluation.
Chile wants to lead from knowledge and not from fear. And I say it here, in this hall, for one reason: the United Nations must be capable of bringing humanity together to talk about the technology that is going to determine this century, before everything is resolved by an algorithm.
Mr. President, I return to the beginning. That President of Chile who spoke here 74 years ago said, in the name of his people and above any ideological difference, that Chile would continue working with fervor and with deep conviction so that the principles that inspire the Charter of the United Nations and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights may be realized. At that time we were seven million inhabitants. Today we are twenty. The world is different and so are we.
But that word still stands, and I renew it today before you. Chile has restored order, and with order freedom is returning. Confidence has returned, and with confidence the will is beginning to return. Investment has returned, and with investment work will begin to return.
A country that is rising as quickly as it fell has something to say to the world. And what Chile comes to say is that this can be done: a country can be recovered without destroying it, with votes, with agreements, with laws, and with results.
But it also has something more to say: a future can be built without being held hostage to the decisions of others. Latin America can be the continent of the next decade not because someone allows it, but because we have the capacity and the will to do so.
Chile wants to lead the way to achieve this. Chile is back. Thank you very much.