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We derive the low-energy limit of quantum chromodynamics (QCD) and provide evidence that in the 't Hooft limit, i.e. for a very large number of colors and increasing 't Hooft coupling, quark confinement is recovered. The low energy limit of the theory turns out to be a non-local Nambu–Jona-Lasinio (NJL) model. The effect of non-locality, arising from a gluon propagator that fits quite well to the profile of an instanton liquid, is to produce a phase transition from a chiral condensate to an instanton liquid, as the coupling increases with lower momentum. This phase transition suffices to move the poles of the quark propagator to the complex plane. As a consequence, free quarks are no longer physical states in the spectrum of the theory.