Congressional Testimony on New Hemispheric Policy Priorities

February 4, 2009

Testifying today before the Committee on Foreign Affairs and the Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere, Council of the Americas Vice President Eric Farnsworth emphasized that “the development of a new hemispheric growth agenda is critical.”

As part of a hearing on U.S. policy toward Latin America, Farnsworth focused on the hemispheric response to the global financial crisis and the need for energy partnerships in the region. “The best way to assist the hemisphere at this point in time would be to fix the U.S. economy, resisting any understandable but ultimately self-defeating impulses toward trade and investment protectionism,” he said. “Protectionist measures deepen recessions and throw even more people out of work on all sides.”

The Energy Partnership for the Americas is another crucial initiative, said Farnsworth, as ”finding a path forward to increase supply of traditional and non-traditional energy, encourage conservation, and build a coordinated regional approach to global climate change would be a significant contribution to the hemispheric agenda, as well as to our own daily lives.

”More specifically, Farnsworth added that “the United States must also continue to place special emphasis on engaging with Brazil as an emerging global actor. We must also do a better job in nurturing the complex relationship with Mexico, perhaps our most urgent hemispheric task.”

For the full testimony click here.



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