00:00It's an amazing story that, basically, other than Nicaragua, other than Cuba, obviously, other than Venezuela, remains with some challenges,
00:07and, of course, Brazil, although they're in the midst of an election cycle, give you perfect examples in our own
00:13Western Hemisphere,
00:14an area that this committee and many of its members long argued, as I did, has long been neglected and
00:19not been to pay attention to.
00:20We now have, in this hemisphere, a coalition of friendly countries, over a dozen,
00:24who have aligned to work on not just the issues of security that we all have in common, but also
00:29economic prosperity that go hand in hand.
00:31It's an amazing story that, basically, other than Nicaragua, other than Cuba, obviously, other than Venezuela, remains with some challenges,
00:39and, of course, Brazil, although they're in the midst of an election cycle, and, to some extent, the current government
00:44in Colombia as well,
00:45at least the president's been problematic, but, generally speaking, it is now a region filled with American allies,
00:51as American-friendly leaders, and an American-friendly direction.
00:54Now, obviously, we have to operationalize that into action after 20 years of neglect,
00:58in which China and other global powers have intruded in our Western Hemisphere,
01:02to the detriment, not just of American national interest, but to the detriment, in our view, of the people of
01:07those countries as well.
Comentários