00:00I'll give you a perfect example in our own Western Hemisphere, an area that this committee and many of its
00:04members long argued, as I did, has long been neglected and not been paid attention to.
00:08We now have in this hemisphere a coalition of friendly countries, over a dozen, who have aligned to work on
00:14not just the issues of security that we all have in common, but also economic prosperity that go hand in
00:19hand.
00:19It's an amazing story that basically, other than Nicaragua, other than Cuba, obviously other than Venezuela, remains with some challenges,
00:27and of course Brazil, although they're in the midst of an election cycle, and to some extent the current government
00:33in Colombia as well, at least the president's been problematic, but generally speaking, it is now a region filled with
00:38American allies, American-friendly leaders, and an America-friendly direction.
00:42Now obviously we have to operationalize that into action after 20 years of neglect, in which China and other global
00:48powers have intruded in our Western Hemisphere, to the detriment not just of American national interest, but to the detriment,
00:54in our view, of the people of those countries as well.
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