00:00We're really excited to be celebrating our National Day in February because it coincides
00:11with our President's Day, so it's a very important holiday for us.
00:15And this is an opportunity to really showcase the really strong U.S.-UAE partnership.
00:20The United States is celebrating its 246th anniversary this year.
00:26We're celebrating the day in July in 1776 when our founding fathers signed the Declaration
00:35of Independence.
00:36We typically celebrate our National Day in February, which is the month that we celebrate
00:43what we call President's Day, which is a commemoration of the birthday of our first president, George
00:52Washington, and our greatest president, Abraham Lincoln.
00:57So we're taking advantage of the beautiful weather at this time of year in Dubai and
01:02the proximity of those two very important birthdays in our history.
01:07We're very excited that our guest of honor tonight is His Excellency Abdullah bin Tughalmari,
01:12the economy minister.
01:14And I think that's really important because the trade relationship between the U.S. and
01:17the UAE is incredibly important.
01:20It goes across countless sectors.
01:22It is very strong and it's very deep.
01:24And so it's an opportunity to celebrate that as well.
01:26In addition to economic and trade partners here tonight, these are our friends.
01:30These are our friends across so many industries, across the arts, culture, education.
01:35There are about 50,000 Americans who live in the UAE, and yes, many of them will be
01:41here, many of our fellow American citizens will be here tonight.
01:46We are really looking forward to interacting with them.
01:50And we hope that we have put together an event that they can be proud of as Americans.
01:57Our theme tonight is life, liberty, and the pursuit of a sustainable future.
02:02We're also focused on our innovation partnerships.
02:05The United States has been here since the beginning of the UAE's founding, and many
02:08of our American companies have worked in partnership here in the UAE to develop the country and
02:14to really provide infrastructure and resources for the Emiratis to move forward, to advance
02:20there and achieve their goals.
02:21So we're very excited to spotlight some of those innovation partnerships and also to
02:26spotlight some of our unique American innovations.
02:29Life, liberty, and the pursuit of a future was the theme of our pavilion at Expo Dubai
02:342020.
02:36And because the UAE is hosting COP28 this year, we thought it would be good to introduce
02:42the concept of sustainability.
02:45So life, liberty, and the pursuit of a sustainable future.
02:50And tonight, in my remarks and in decorations and in themes of the event, we'll be talking
02:56about how the tremendous creativity of America's companies, of America's universities, of American
03:05laboratories that continue to bring to the world life-changing technologies.
03:13American scientific and technological leadership has been a constant throughout our nation's
03:19history and it remains intact today.
03:24And we believe that we have a very important role to play in the future of this country.
03:31This is a country that is transitioning away from its dependence on hydrocarbons and it's
03:37moving towards a future based upon a knowledge-based economy, incorporating the very best of technology.
03:47Our companies are very active in all of the STEM fields.
03:51Aviation is a very important field for us here and that's a field where sustainability
03:59is a very, very important theme.
04:03American companies and research institutions are constantly innovating and they're constantly
04:13introducing new ideas and new products to the marketplace.
04:17And as they do, they're creating new areas of collaboration.
04:23We're doing a lot of very exciting things with the UAE in terms of genomics.
04:28What's happening on cloud computing, advanced health sciences is another interesting area.
04:37And this is just going to continue.
04:39As America continues to innovate, we're generating new areas of collaboration.
04:44Well, there's a very important mission coming up.
04:48An Emirati astronaut will be going on a historic mission to space on an American rocket very,
04:55very soon.
04:57And that's really a wonderful example of how a relationship that was initially developed
05:07through extraction of resources buried deep in the earth has now grown to include the
05:16exploration and study of the moon, the planets, and the stars.
05:23So that's a really great story about the arc of the historic relationship between the
05:29United States and the UAE.
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