“Enough Looting My People”: Peru’s Marxist Presidential Frontrunner Pledges To Seize Offshore Company Profits

US corporations are facing an increasingly tough run over the next few years: on one hand all their domestic profits are about to be taxed at much higher rates thanks to Bidenomics, on the other, they are facing an increasingly hostile socialist regime internationally, that seeks to confiscate most if not all of their offshore profits.

Case in point, Peru, whose presidential front-runner, Marxist Pedro Castillo who favorably quotes Lenin and Castro, said he’ll do what leftists everywhere do, and intends to redistribute wealth – because socialism – by reviewing contracts with transnational companies in a move to increase onshore wealth.

In a debate with Keiko Fujimori ahead of the June 6 runoff, Castillo said multinationals should expect to leave 70% of their profits in Peru. Which is just a little bit more than what leftist president Joe Biden proposes they leave in the US.

“Enough of looting my people,” the 51-year-old school teacher said in his hometown region, Cajamarca.

As part of his populist package, Bloomberg reports that Castillo will also seek to raise investment in education to 10% of gross domestic product. He also proposed lowering the pension age to 60 and cutting lawmakers’ wages by half, although it was unclear where he would find the money to fund the early retirement – probably just more wealth confiscation (he said he would decline compensation as president).

Meanwhile, as Peru braces for the joys of socialism, Peruvian assets have fallen as the presidential election approaches with the sol touching record lows this week.

Despite a modest drop in Castillo’s lead – he has of 44% the vote versus 34% for Fujimori, daughter of jailed former President Alberto Fujimori according to a poll released Friday by Datum – he will almost certainly be the next president especially since Fujimori had been confined to campaigning in Lima because she is the subject of a criminal investigation. A full 11% of voters remain undecided, and 11% plan to cast blank or invalidated ballots, the survey found.

As the WSJ notes, Castillo’s thinking is frighteningly similar to that of the late Hugo Chávez, who ruled Venezuela from 1999 until his death in 2013. Chavismo strangled Venezuela’s democratic institutions, sent human capital fleeing, destroyed the economy, and generated widespread poverty. Venezuela was once one of the most advanced countries in the region. Today Venezuelans live primitively, often without running water, electricity or basic medical supplies.

And in a few weeks, the miracle of socialism will strike its next target.