Below is the transcript of a CNBC Exclusive interview with former President of Mexico Vincente Fox. The interview was first broadcast on CNBC's Squawk Box Asia on 11 February 2019.
All references must be sourced to a "CNBC Interview'.
Interviewed by CNBC's Hadley Gamble
Hadley Gamble (HG): Vincente Fox thank you so much for joining CNBC. I want to kick off by asking you about what you see as the greatest challenges facing the world today.
Vincente Fox (VF): Well, I think the main, main challenge to my point of view. I'm 77 – I'm in the winter of my life, so you get a little bit of wisdom…
HG: The golden years, not winter!
VF: When I look behind and I see that we have never been successful linking together to successful first world. Those who lead the world with the real guys. We have too many billions of people that don't have the opportunities. And they were the silent majority in the past but now they are loud raising their voices. A minority that is claiming their opportunity. So if we want to have a future of success, harmony, peace, unity we must be compassionate. We must have love as the main ingredient in anything we do. We can be entrepreneurs, we can be governments, we can be academy, we can be researchers, we can be innovators, but if we don't have a spirit of compassion, that compassion and leadership to share with others, we won't make it.
HG: Well. Does Donald Trump have that kind of compassion?
VF: Phew…[in Spanish], as we say in Spanish – it's double the rate. Yes, unfortunately he is not ... he doesn't seem to be a human being. He just looks like a machine and he doesn't have any compassion. We never seen him embracing an Afro-American kid, or embracing a disabled kid. You'll never see him sharing love except maybe, maybe with his wife and his son. But the rest of the world, he doesn't care about.
HG: When you look at what's happening in France for example we have the yellow vests. We have riots in Paris for months. Is the government getting it wrong?
VF: This is the world of today. Governments, each time, they have less legitimacy, less support. People has lost credibility about political parties, about government and this has to be change, again that's why I always claim, love, compassion - a humanistic attitude is what really will make this world better. And there is many, many, many people working on that side of the developing line. But, yet the leaders are not committed enough. They just want to see for themselves. They just want their place in history, but they don't care about the others.
HG: You just spent a couple of days at a CEO summit right here in Dubai, and one of the things that they were really focused on was making the world a better place. And just how to do that? You're looking at housing and health care as well as the debt crisis. What was your key takeaway?
VF: We came as a group, invited by, led by Kairos. And this is a fantastic group. People from all over the world, with warm hearts, with compassionate attitude. And we were requested by the world forum to present three driving ideas for what we think that could be changed on the side of entrepreneurship in the next five years. And yes, we came out a lot of things have to be happening. One is health. The health system is not working, is not delivering. Education in a way is obsolete; not the content but the access the corporates, the participation of everybody. And that number three environment. Very terrible problems with the environment so we came with ideas that entrepreneurs, that investors in the private sector can tackle and solve at least part of the problems that we're going to be facing in the next five years.
HG: And when you look at what's happening between your country and the United States. A lot of people in the United States are divided about whether a wall could be the answer, what's your take?
VF: That is the big, big problem of today in United States the divide. And when the leader is calling aggressive means for people, when the leader is not uniting. Then you have this divide and this is what we have all around the world. We don't need walls. We need bridges of understanding. We need bridges of sharing. And that's exactly what must be done in this very immediate future.
HG: Do you think that they're going to let him get his wall?
VF: Well, I think I'm sure we won't pay for it. We will never, ever pay for it. If he wants to build the wall with US citizens' money, his government's money let it be. But it's a useless wall. It's a waste of money. He said the fighting element so it's nonsense.
HG: Thank you so much for joining CNBC. Thank you.
END
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