The famous Peruvian economist Hernando de Soto has written an public letter to Pope Francis, suggesting that the pontiff tell Donald Trump that the world needs more walls, not fewer walls, if we are truly going to help the world’s poor.

Writing in Fortune magazine, De Soto, a hero of free-market advocates and the author of the award-winning 2000 bestseller The Mystery of Capital, does not shy away from giving advice to Pope Francis, suggesting that in order to achieve his goal of helping the indigent to emerge from poverty, a greater protection of property rights is essential.

De Soto, who has successfully debated iconic left-wing economists like Jeffrey Sachs and Joseph Stiglitz, has been an outspoken advocate of a sturdier rule of law, and especially property law, in countries that are plagued by high poverty levels.

The economist notes that 5 billion of the world’s 7 billion people don’t hold legal title to the property that they own, and so they lack the legal property rights required “to reside, own assets or do business in their own or any other country.”

This is in large part why so many people of the world can do little to improve their economic status, de Soto argues, since legitimate property owners “will struggle to have access to credit or the ability to raise capital since borrowers typically need to pledge some kind of property in exchange.”

Despite his conservative credentials, De Soto has won praise from across the aisle, from Margaret Thatcher to Koffi Annan. Bill Clinton famously called de Soto “the world’s greatest living economist” and Jack Kemp said he deserved to win the Nobel Peace Prize.

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Read the whole articleom the website of Breitbart