Secretary of State Blinken: Well, good morning everyone. Welcome to Washington.
I am so pleased to be joined by so many friends from all corners of the hemisphere. As I said to my colleagues, I wanted to extend the warmest greetings I could to you all. Maybe I went too far — Washington just experienced its two hottest days in 100 years — but I hope you will embrace the intended spirit of these words — a spirit of warm welcome. From Canada to Chile, we are bound by history and geography, by ties of family and community, by trade and commerce.
We are united by common challenges, from climate change to illegal immigration to inequality of opportunity.
And we are bound by a common hope: a common hope for a safer, more prosperous, and more democratic future for all of our nations and people.
It is these shared aspirations – and the belief that we can achieve them better by working together – that led President Biden to launch the Inter-American Partnership for Economic Prosperity just two years ago at the Summit of the Americas in Los Angeles.
This partnership is part of a broader effort to modernize our economic relationship and grow our economies from the bottom up and the middle out.
To show that strengthening worker and climate protections, making supply chains more resilient, and ensuring our digital infrastructure is reliable, secure and open are key to improving our competitiveness.
And we will show that our interdependence can be a source of strength, not a weakness, for our people, our economies, and our democracies.
That’s what partnerships are for. And in just the last two years, our 12 countries have made incredible progress in improving our communities and better unlocking the potential of all our people.
We are making supply chains stronger and more resilient.
Through our Americas Partnership Platform, the Inter-American Development Bank, and the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation, we provide technical assistance and financing to attract private investment in infrastructure throughout the Western Hemisphere.
We have already begun laying the foundations for $3 billion worth of high-standard, sustainable, strategically significant projects.
Improving our supply chain backbone will improve our infrastructure and make the goods our people rely on — like semiconductors, electric vehicle batteries, and medical supplies — more affordable, safer, and made right here on America’s continent.
We also invest in our people.
Costa Rica has established a center of excellence to train workers from across the Americas to be more competitive in the high-tech fields of the future, from cybersecurity to artificial intelligence.
The United States, Canada and Uruguay have established an accelerator to recruit and train 750 entrepreneurs across the region, and later today Uruguay will announce a network of angel investors and a digital platform to encourage further investment in this highly diverse group of entrepreneurs.
Together we are advancing a clean energy economy – for example, clean hydrogen, which, as you know, produces only water as a byproduct, as opposed to the carbon dioxide emitted by burning fossil fuels – that could be a game changer for our climate.
That’s why we’ve launched the Clean Hydrogen Working Group to coordinate technical and regulatory issues and support the expansion of this renewable energy source across the Americas.
Going forward, our two countries will work together in new ways to take this partnership to the next level.
Today, I am pleased to announce one such effort: the Western Hemisphere Semiconductor Initiative. Funded by the bipartisan CHIPS Act, this initiative will significantly increase countries’ semiconductor assembly, testing, and packaging capabilities, starting with Mexico, Panama, and Costa Rica.
The United States will also host a symposium in Mexico this September, following a highly successful conference in Costa Rica in January, to explore ways the region can play a greater role in the global supply chain of this critical technology.
To continue to grow and strengthen our partnership, we have also developed a process for more countries to join and contribute. We hope to add more partners, include more perspectives, make this group even more representative and responsive, and create even more opportunities for our people while maintaining our high standards and upholding the values that unite us.
And we will build on the summit we held in Washington last November and convene a leaders-level summit in Costa Rica next year. I thank our Costa Rican partners for this leadership.
From the beginning, this has been a true partnership in every sense of the word, and I want to thank all of you at this table, and your respective Ministers of Trade and Finance, for your commitment to fostering commercial relations and investment across this region.
We believe one of the keys to our success has been our ability to integrate the ideas and priorities of a wide range of stakeholders, including the private sector, labor unions, environmental organizations, members of Indigenous communities, and other underrepresented groups, and we strive to ensure that these voices are heard and shape our work.
Over the past few years, I have had the great pleasure and privilege of traveling through the region and having the opportunity to meet many of the people who benefit from the work of this partnership. I met artists. I met small business owners in Quito, anti-corruption activists in Panama City, entrepreneurs in Santiago.
And the common thread — and I’m sure you all share this — is the determination and energy of our people to build a better future for their families and their communities. If we can fully deliver on the promise of this partnership, I believe we have a historic opportunity to realize the aspirations of our people, strengthen faith in our democracy, and build a more equitable, sustainable, and prosperous region for all.
So I really appreciate all that you’re doing as partners in this effort. I appreciate you all being here today. I’ll now say goodbye to my colleagues and move on. Thank you, everyone. (Applause.)
