The Summit of the Americas: implementation work program - Thomas F. McLarty III, Counselor to the President and Secretary of State for the Summit of the Americas, May 23, 1995 - Transcript

US Department of State Dispatch, May 29, 1995

To advance key foreign policy objectives, including implementation of summit commitments, we need all instruments of foreign policy available to us. Our ability to help advance the summit agenda - in key areas, including anti-corruption, administration of justice, health, education, and the environment - would be seriously damaged by proposed legislation. This legislation would not only destroy important foreign policy implementing agencies, but it would also cut, at a minimum, 35%-40% in program resources for Latin America, even though, as you know, we have already cut our funding in the region to the bone. The cuts would also spell an immediate and unjustified end to the Inter-American Foundation. This legislation should not pass. We need your help to substantially modify it or defeat it.

This hemisphere is the second fastest-growing economic region in the world. Latin America's infrastructure needs alone will require an estimated $500 billion in investment in the coming decade. The opportunities for U.S. business and industry are immense. But we must work cooperatively both in the United States and region-wide to sustain mutually beneficial progress. Economic integration is a natural and desired course.

President Clinton and his colleagues in the hemisphere have sketched a visionary blueprint - an architecture if you will - to guide hemispheric relations well into the next century. The President feels strongly about this commitment. As one pundit wrote recently, the President is attacking insecurity by confidently defining the future. Now is not the time to withdraw. The opportunities presented by greater integration in the hemisphere are vast. We will leave our children an expansive legacy if we seize them.