3rd Annual Americas Society Latin America Conference

As prepared for delivery

Introduction

Susan (Segal, President, Americas Society) thank you for that kind introduction. I also want to thank the Council and the Americas Society for the opportunity to address this conference today. I was reviewing the program for the rest of your activities today and it is a tribute to the Council’s excellent work that you all are here today. More importantly, it is an acknowledgement of the critical nature of the subject matter.

I’d like to focus my remarks today on the progress the region has made together, a short review of some of the challenges we confront, and the steps we must take to achieve President Bush’s goal of building a Hemisphere “trading in freedom,” in every sense of that expression. Although having my job undoubtedly would be an honor for anyone, at any time, I am especially fortunate to work for a President who understands and values our relationships with the Americas.

President Bush believes that the Americas are critically important to our security and our well-being as a nation. The United States shares abiding economic and political ties with the region. Indeed, when we speak of the peoples of the Americas, we are in many cases literally referring to family, and it is these ties that bind our respective destinies together.

Any discussion of the region has to begin with an appreciation for the tremendous progress that the Hemisphere has made over the past few decades. Twenty years ago, thousands of people were dying in Central American conflicts each year, democracy was not yet an accepted norm for many of our nations, and capitalism was equated with exploitation by too many political leaders.

Today, we are working toward a regional free trade agreement, and political power is transferred by ballots, not bullets.

Substantial Record on Trade

The United States wants our partners in this hemisphere to enjoy peace and prosperity for its own sake and also because it is clearly in our best interest that they do so.

As many of you know, some of our most important economic partners are in the Americas. For example:

• Canada and Mexico are our first and second largest trading partners in the world.
• The United States sells more to Brazil than we do to Russia, Italy, and Greece combined.
• Three of our top four foreign energy suppliers are in this Hemisphere.
• Total U.S. exports to Central America are nearly twice as much than to all of Eastern Europe.
• And the United States is a leading importer of goods and services from every nation in the Americas.

To secure this economic market, President Bush campaigned successfully for Trade Promotion Authority, exceeding everyone’s expectations except his own, at a time when we were dealing with the fallout of the September 11 attacks and a full legislative agenda.

A Chile free trade agreement that had been shelved for a decade was signed and sealed.

Rather than rest on those successes, President Bush has seized the opportunities for other bilateral deals -- negotiating an FTA with Central America, and laying the groundwork for similar talks with other willing partners. In the meantime, the United States is showing determined leadership in the Free Trade Area of the Americas process.

Our trading relationships in the Western Hemisphere support jobs here at home and throughout the region, and they are vital to the prosperity of the United States. But our relationships in the Americas are much more than economic arrangements. Our goal is to build an inter-American community, bound together by common values of freedom fortified by the rule of law and strong democratic institutions, and fueled by free trade and investment.

This is a relationship based on shared principles. On the fateful day of September 11, 2001, the member states of the OAS signed the Inter-American Democratic Charter, a historic step that uniquely defines this region by its commitment to democratic principles. The Democratic Charter opens with a profound pledge -- which we made to our people and to one another: “The peoples of the Americas have a right to democracy, and their governments have an obligation to promote and defend it.”

That essential commitment to democracy and human dignity and our determination to work together as a community to defend those values binds us together and moves us to act in concert.

As we pursue the Global War on Terror, we know that we need the support of strong democratic governments to help defend our borders and our values and interests abroad. Many of our partners in the Coalition of the Willing are our neighbors in this Hemisphere.

Today troops from the Dominican Republic, Honduras, El Salvador, and Nicaragua are standing shoulder to shoulder with U.S. Armed Forces in Iraq, working together to rebuild a country devastated by 30 years of dictatorship and establish a democratic government that will allow the Iraqi people to control their own destiny for the first time.

Not only have we strengthened our economic ties to the region, we have bound ourselves together in the defense of shared political values. In my view, this already is an impressive record of achievement. And what we have accomplished together sets this region apart from the rest of the world.

But our work has just begun. Our goal is to help our friends and neighbors consolidate the historic political and economic progress they have made in the last two decades and, together, build a community of democracies committed to freedom and opportunity for all of our people.

This is not a rhetorical flourish. It is a practical strategy for broad-based, sustained growth that could produce a century of stability and prosperity for 800 million people and generations to come.

Canada

Canada is one of this country’s most important partners and I made a point of visiting Ottawa as early as possible in my tenure. We have, of course, the broadest and deepest bilateral relationship between any two countries in the world -- a point that was made very dramatically at a lunch hosted by my Canadian counterpart. We were joined by senior officials representing six different Canadian federal cabinet departments.

They were eager to discuss trade, environment, defense, border security, and legal questions where our two countries have common goals and confront similar problems. The U.S. and Canada also have a strong partnership internationally, and I appreciate the intense attention Canada is paying to the Western Hemisphere and I value the opportunity to collaborate with them in the Americas.

Of course, any successful strategy must first recognize that today, the Hemisphere is troubled. Many of the region’s elected leaders are grappling with persistent political, economic, and social problems.

Challenges

Bolivia

In Bolivia, for example, demonstrations have turned violent over this past weekend, resulting in the loss of at least 50 lives. The current instability poses a threat to the government of President Sanchez de Lozada and to 21 years of democracy in that country. Our multilateral partners at the Organization of American States (OAS) are working to support the Bolivian government and return stability to that country.

The positive strides made in Bolivia cannot be allowed to be threatened by those seeking to undermine the legitimate constitutional authority of President Sanchez de Lozada. Whatever the grievances and problems, it is difficult to imagine how they would be resolved by mob rule. We have called on all parties involved to reject violence and to seek a peaceful and democratic resolution to the crisis.

We understand Bolivia is currently facing economic hardship, and we will continue to work with the Bolivian government and the international financial institutions to help the Bolivian people.

Colombia

With our help, the government of President Alvaro Uribe is making significant gains in his effort to eradicate illegal drug cultivation and stem the tide of terror in Colombia. Last year we estimate coca cultivation dropped by fifteen percent drop in 2002, and we are expecting another significant drop this year. Violence is down, as the rule of law is being applied by the state throughout its territory.

With our help through training and assistance, the Colombian government has also reduced the number and impact of guerilla attacks on an oil pipeline in the north -- protecting a key piece of economic infrastructure that represents a substantial part of Colombia’s exports.

President Uribe has boosted security spending, increased the number of military and police, and mounted a concerted effort to reestablish state presence in areas where criminal groups once operated with impunity. This year, “caribinero” teams have begun policing close to 150 municipalities that previously lacked a police presence. At the same time, Colombia’s armed forces have stepped up the campaign to take back key national territory from the control of terrorist groups. The FARC and ELN are now on the defensive, and President Uribe has successfully pressured paramilitary forces to come to the table to discuss disarmament and demobilization.

Speaking more generally, while there can be no doubt that over the last two decades the people of the Americas have made enormous progress, millions of our neighbors -- too many of them children -- suffer from inadequate shelter and nutrition. Economies in the region are not growing fast enough to generate sufficient jobs for growing populations, let alone to address chronic poverty.

Corruption and inefficiency has stunted development and spawned popular discontent. Several countries are confronting serious national security threats from terrorists and other criminal gangs. In some countries, these factors have combined to produce violent outbursts, which new and relatively weak institutions of democratic government are hard-pressed to control.

The levers for removing these remaining obstacles to growth are in our neighbors’ hands. However, there is no doubt that U.S. leadership will be crucial to helping our friends in the region overcome these challenges.

Working with Our Friends

We can do this by working with our partners in the region to help make democratic government serve every citizen better. We must continue to advocate policies that have a proven record of success such as free market reform, respect for the rule of law, the right to property, and sound macroeconomic principles.

Through a robust OAS and Summit process, we set shared priorities and help one another meet them. President Bush will meet his counterparts in January in Mexico at an interim Summit to agree on practical measures to reduce poverty through economic growth, to invest in the health and education of our people and to meet the people’s just demand for effective and honest government.

Because of our shared values -- plus President Bush’s own orientation as a “compassionate conservative” -- our relations with governments across the political spectrum have seldom been stronger.

For example, President Bush has begun a productive relationship with Brazil’s President Lula, holding a “joint cabinet meeting” to institutionalize our cooperation across the board.

Mexico also is confronting the necessity of further reforms. It is in our interest to see that country, which President Bush has described as our most important partner, continue to grow and to expand the economic opportunities available to all its people. That is the basis of our relationship, and I believe our relationship has never been stronger. We continue to work closely with Mexico on the whole range of issues from trade to security to economic development.

We are working with our neighbors to help the people of Haiti, Venezuela, and Cuba claim and exercise fully their political liberties.

Cuba

With regard to Cuba, a curious event took place several days ago in Paris when a trendy crowd -- including Catherine Deneuve and Pedro Almodova -- was chanting “Cuba si, Castro no.” My friends, when the Bush Administration and the French Communist Party both condemn Castro’s repression, you know that the dictator is in trouble. Our allies, especially in Europe, see the regime for what it is, and they are insisting on democratic change like never before. Frankly, we’d like more Latin American governments to speak up for democracy in Cuba and against the repression. We will continue to make every effort to work multilaterally and globally, maintaining the intensity and breadth of international support for the Cuban people.

Last year President Bush challenged Castro to play by the rules of not only his own constitution but by the accepted political norms of every nation in the Hemisphere and allow the Cuban people to vote on political and economic reforms. The United States offered to match incremental steps toward freedom and open markets with proportional easing of our actions.

The dictator has made it abundantly clear that he has no intention of easing the suffering of his own citizens. But his actions at least served to show the rest of the world who is the source of all of Cuba’s misery.

This is a crucial time for the cause of a free Cuba. We must be prepared for the inevitable changes coming to Cuba and for that reason last Friday President Bush directed his Administration to intensify enforcement of U.S. law and take concerted action against individuals who flout the embargo and travel restrictions. Secondly, in order to ensure that only safe, legal, and orderly migration occurs between our countries, we are interested in increasing the number of legal migrants. Third, the President has directed TV and Radio Marti to continue to find ways to break the “information embargo” that the Cuban government has imposed on his people by enhancing its programming and effectiveness of delivering the message against Castro’s jamming. The President created a commission headed by Secretaries Powell and Martinez that is tasked with developing a comprehensive program designed to end the long nightmare of Castro’s repression as well as assist the Cuban people establish institutions of free enterprise after he leaves the stage for good.

The example of Bolivia demonstrates the challenge of bolstering reform-minded leaders who are the only thing standing between their country and disaster.

President Bush’s “Millennium Challenge Account” will be a powerful support and incentive to fight corruption, to extend opportunity to all their people, and to govern effectively. Under this initiative, we will increase our core development assistance by 50%, resulting in a $5 billion annual increase over current levels by fiscal year 2006 and beyond. These monies will be directed to those countries that govern justly and honestly, uphold the rule of law, invest in their people, and promote economic freedom.

At the same time, we know that trade not aid represents the best opportunity for the countries in this hemisphere to attract the capital that they need to create jobs and sustain a level of economic growth that will support the public investments in education, health, and infrastructure that are essential to the quality of life.

More than half of our neighbors live in poverty -- chronic poverty that has persisted over generations. That cycle of poverty must be broken by generating sustained growth, and trade and investment is the best way to do that.

Combined with and oriented by the rule of law and representative democracy, our trade relations will be more than a mercantile arrangement. It will be a community of nations as prosperous and as just as they can be, “growing together” in every sense of that expression.

We also will encourage countries to use the proceeds of economic growth to invest in their people, so that people from all walks of life have the tools -- such as education and adequate healthcare -- to claim their fair share of economic opportunity, improve their own quality of life, and contribute to the greater good.

Conclusion

Each of the subjects I have mentioned today -- integrating our economies, unleashing the creative forces of markets, fighting corruption, providing for our common security, and extending and deepening democracy in the region -- is critical to achieving our goal of an American community of nations that lives in peace and freedom and in which the fruits of economic growth are enjoyed by all.

This is a very exciting time in the history of the Western Hemisphere. There are many opportunities. There are also many challenges. While we are optimistic, we are not naive. President Bush has a vision for the Americas growing together in peace and freedom and a practical plan for achieving it. I am confident that each of you will lend your support to building this community.

I look forward to working with our friends in the Americas to meet the challenges ahead. Thank you for your time and attention and I would be delighted to answer any questions you may have.