Since he left office, the former president has given an estimated 50 speeches a year to corporate audiences for hundreds of thousands of dollars per event. In 2017, the same year he left office, Obama was officially recognized as one of the top ten highest paid public speakers in the US. Just last month, Obama was reported to have been paid nearly $600,000 to speak at the EXMA conference in Bogotá, Colombia. Colombia is infamous for the corruption prevalent in its public sector and military, which costs the country $17 billion a year, equivalent to 5.3 percent of its GDP. Colombia exports half of the world’s cocaine and its drug cartels have been known to have a hand in the government.
— source wsws.org | 20 Jun 2019