The Readout: A Conversation on U.S. Engagement in the Western Hemisphere

You've just returned from a week-long trip with the Secretary down to Latin America
You're our senior bureau official as others would know at our acting assistant secretary for the Western Hemisphere
Tell us a little bit about the trip and some of the deliverables that came out of it.
Well, I really think It's the way that trip was launched with a major policy speech at the University of Texas
Austin and he was able to lay out a vision for the hemisphere and
emphasize that the United States is going to be an enduring partner in this region that we have shared

interests in
energy secure democratic hemisphere, that's safe
And has security so he set the stage went down to Mexico
Mexico is one of our most important country allies on our border and talked
in depth with the Mexican Foreign Minister and
the Mexican president about all the other things that are part of the U.S.
relationship beyond just trade.
And we've done a lot with Mexico in the past year since secretary Tillerson came in his first
foreign trip as Secretary of State was down to Mexico you were along for that one
What are some of the changes that we've had in our relationship over the past year.
Well, you know we've really worked hard the secretary launched on his first trip this Transnational Criminal
Organization
Dialogue with Mexico there was a meeting in May here in Washington, and then another meeting in
November and we were able to really
attack the problem
jointly of a transnational criminal organization.
What are the roots of that problem?
Well, it's the drug trafficking, but what we've learned is these groups
smuggle aliens,
smuggle weapons, move bulk cash back and forth and are
Involved in trafficking in persons.
I remember the first time we met we sat down in your office, and you talked to me about
along the southern border and about how much the United States, especially
DHS and our Border Patrol, are working with the Mexican government to help them from the slow,
the flow of drugs from coming up through South America through through, Mexico.
This is one of those areas where the Merida Initiative, a two point six billion dollar assistance initiative, has really made an impact, because a
decade ago before the initiative we had good relations,
but we now have deep law enforcement connections because we've been able to work with them to professionalize their forces
to develop common tactics and
across the entire border
Mexican security forces are doing more and more with their U.S. law enforcement partners.
You look at the drug problem in the United States, ask any parent and the suburbs are in the cities, it is such a enormous
problem, how are we best trying to combat that, and why does it seem to be an increasing problem?
You know, in every stop on the trip
not just in Mexico, the Secretary talked about the tragedy of the deaths due to
drug consumption in the United States, and he had a real
Personal feeling that we need to work with these countries to get them to do more to combat this
drug trafficking, and you know one of the ways he wants to do it is
trying to take down the entire business model, the production, the marketing, the
financing, and then
recognize in the United States that we have a problem with demand, and we've got to deal with the demand part of
the challenge.
And he's made that very clear also where he said look. We're partly at fault
It's not just your nation or your nations. It's us, too.
We drive the demand.
He likes to said we have to own that part of the problem, of the supply, of the supply chain.
So what was the main message as we were talking in Mexico?
So in Mexico we talked about
the effort on transnational criminal organizations.
We talked about
how do we help the Mexicans strengthen their southern border to prevent the flow of
illegal irregular migration through Mexico to our border.
He also had a trilateral meeting where Canada joined us, and the Canadian foreign minister
Chrystia Freeland was there, and
one of the things they agreed to was to look at in on a trilateral basis how we can
help mitigate
some of the challenges with Venezuela on
countries where people are going to.
Yeah ,and that was such a big theme throughout the Secretary's trip it seemed like
from here in Washington looking at the news that that came up in every single one of his meetings, his conversations, his bilateral meetings.
In every country he talked about Venezuela.
And there is a regional consensus that what is happening in Venezuela
goes against the principles of this hemisphere. We have an Inter-American Democratic Charter. It,
the Venezuelan government is
eroding the democratic order of its country. It's not going to have a free, fair, or
transparent election, and in every capital
there is a consensus that we need to maintain pressure on the Maduro regime to return to constitutional,
constitutional democratic order there.
And Mexico has an inordinate amount of influence with Venezuela, as its largest trading partner, is that correct?
I think that is true, but it's also
the Foreign Minister Luis Videgaray, and the Secretary have a a great ongoing conversation on this challenge and
you know Videgaray was in the Dominican Republic when the
opposition was trying to negotiate the terms of a real election,
and he was the first one to pull out and say the government's not serious about this, and
and when Mexico at that level is sending that message, it just
reinforces for the rest of the hemisphere how serious the situation is.
And they may carry more clout than the United States and other countries as a big trading partner and as someone in the region.
The Lima Group of Regional country have been really out from this.
That's good, good to hear. So from there you went on to
Argentina?
Argentina.
Okay, tell us about that trip.
Well, you know, again in every capital, he was received by the head of government.
And he had a great meeting with Mauricio Macri,
not in the Casa Rosada, but in the presidential residence, Los Olivos, which the president doesn't normally
receive foreign ministers there.
A tremendous honor.
Yeah, exactly. And
again in,
in Argentina, we talked about bilateral trade and commerce issues. We talked about
scientific
exchange and conservation efforts.
We talked about Venezuela,
and we talked about
Buenos Aires hosting
for the first time ever in a South American city, the G-20 Summit of leaders,
at the end of November this year, and that's really a big, a big deal for
for South America.
So Western Hemisphere, your bureau, and Secretary Tillerson have a big year this year, because it's the year of the
Americas with the G-20 and the G-7.
Yeah, absolutely.
It's the G-20, it's the G-7, and then in
in April, it's the Summit of the Americas
that the Peruvians are hosting.
Which brings me to the next one, and you went to Peru, next correct?
We did.
It sounds like secretary Tillerson has a really
very friendly, very warm relationship with the government of Peru.
Yeah, he
he talked about his first foreign foreign trip
to Peru, when he was in the Longhorn band.
Yes, he was in the college band.
Yes, the college band, and the Peruvians put together this great
video, archival video footage, of the visit.
Really?
And I think if you look closely, you might be able to see the Secretary in his band uniform.
We've got to, we've got to get a copy of that, take a look.
And then they had a lot of good conversations, as I understand it, about
democracy, the importance of good governance, and all that. Tell me, tell me a little bit about that.
Yes, so the Summit of the Americas, the Peruvians have chosen a great theme, which is
democratic governance against corruption.
And you know the Secretary in all of the capitals talked about how if we're going to create the environment for foreign investment and
economic growth,
countries have to take more and serious steps to combat the problem of corruption.
It's a it's a problem in the entire hemisphere.
No one is above reproach, but the Summit will really give
the countries of the region opportunity to really address that and try to come up with some measures.
I've noticed that in so many of the Secretary's bilateral meetings, that's the topic that he will bring up, regardless of the country,
he will say, you know we need
American corporations and other corporations need to have a certain degree of
understanding, respect,
clarity when it comes to investing in your country, so you have to have a rule of law, you have to have a stable,
something stable, and so that's something he brought up in Peru as well, and it'll come up in the meetings later.
That's exactly right. The rule of law is an issue that he underscored in every country
because
if
we're gonna have shared prosperity, our
companies, their companies and our companies, have to be able to play on a level playing field.
Something that may surprise people that the Secretary brings up and a lot of his bilateral meetings is the issue of North Korea, and that
is something that he talked about to some of these countries. For folks who aren't familiar with that,
explain the angle. Why does he bring that up?
Well, there's an international pressure campaign to keep
North Korea isolated, because it has been violating
UN
Security Council resolutions to cease the development of a ballistic missile
capability, and the development of nuclear arms. And in every country
Mexico, Colombia,
Peru, Argentina, we have partners who have been taking steps
to enforce those UN sanctions, and as the Secretary said,
the Peruvians have sent home
the Ambassador and all the embassy personnel.
Whenever those people arrive back, in North Korea,
the Korean leader feels the isolation and so every contribution makes a difference.
And not only that when you kick out
those
employees, and in some instances North Korea will have guest workers who are working in that country,
you kick them out, it helps choke off the money supply going into North Korea that we know goes to its ballistic and nuclear
program so do you want to starve off that money, keep it away so that they can't fund that program.
The Secretary underscored
the international pressure campaign is a global effort and every country can make
contributions to helping isolate
the North Korean regime.
And every little bit counts so it's it's fascinated here that countries you may not think would have relations with North Korea
may have something. That brings me to another issue sort of in the region, and that is China.
He spoke a lot about China's impact in the region, the vast amount of building and infrastructure building they have going on there and expressed his concerns about that. Tell me about those.
You know,
it's part of the Trump Administration's new national security strategy
that the United States needs to be aware of the imperial ambitions that China has, and
there's nowhere where they have tried to get a bigger
toehold than in the Western Hemisphere.
And it is an issue that the Secretary outlined in some detail of the
practices that China uses
to gain that toehold is
sometimes
there are front and short-term benefits
but then by the time you get to the longer-term and the back-end of these projects you realize the
infrastructure you thought the Chinese were buying
for you has been flipped because of the debt you incurred and now they own the
infrastructure instead.
And sometimes they end up having to pay a lot more and effectively interest rates than they had anticipated, so the Secretary
makes it clear, you know, this is not always a good deal, be careful.
We want you to have your money not to have it just go to another government, China.
Exactly, that was exactly the message he delivered.
Okay, so we've covered Mexico, Peru, Argentina. Where next?
Colombia.
Colombia.
Colombia, again, just the atmospherics were great. He had a great
bilateral meeting with the president, Juan Manuel Santos, who then
invited him and the rest of the party for a private dinner in his residence at the
at the presidential palace in his private quarters.
And it was really, a really very, very productive evening where we talked about three key issues. Again how to combat these
transnational criminal organizations
but also
working with the Colombian government to
increase their efforts
against coca cultivation.
There's been a huge growth in the amount of coca that's being cultivated.
Really, what's, what is driving that?
Part of it is the peace process, there's a lot of different theories.
Part of it also was a
decision by the Supreme Court that stopped aerial
spraying of the crop, but in any case the numbers are large, and they are
growing at
very concerning rates, and so we talked with the Colombian government about what it's doing and they have a
plan. They have forced eradication where their military and police go in and pull the plants up. They are trying to get a
voluntary eradication program where
they convince
the farmers, the small farmers, to
sign up to grow different crops with government assistance, Colombian government assistance.
And then finally, there are some real heroes in Colombia who are fighting and dying on the front lines
against these drug cartels to prevent the coca once it's turned into cocaine from reaching the United States. The interdiction efforts on
Colombia's rivers, on its coastlines, and through other ways has
really been something that the Colombians have sacrificed on
to make a difference.
Do we, do we at the State Department provide any kind of security funding for that or any
assistance to the government to help with that?
We, we have a Plan
Colombia that started in 2001 and
2014 we converted that to the Peace
Colombia Plan, some of it is going for these alternative development efforts, but we continue to have a very robust
counter-narcotics assistance package that goes to the Colombian police and the Colombian military.
You know what we haven't mentioned that the Secretary has stopped, and you all stopped, at all our posts along the way.
Oh, yeah.
And meeting our colleagues who are serving in the field and one of the things I love about being here at the State Department is
meeting our people from the field, because that's really what we do best. Our people who are our personal representatives in front of any
foreign country and foreign people.
And so one thing he added on this trip is in Mexico City and then in Argentina,
he met with our Chiefs of Missions, our ambassadors and chargee d'affaires, I
think we had
16 people in Mexico City and seven or eight in in Buenos Aires, he met with the ambassadors,
gave them his vision, and there was a really good policy discussion in both places.
He also kept his promise in Mexico City to meet with the the embassy personnel, and there must have been
500 of them in the courtyard of
our embassy there.
And that means a lot to the families who serve in these foreign posts. They bring their children in. The children
wear their Boy Scout or their Girl Scout uniforms. It's really a big deal.
In, in Colombia they must have had
30 or 40 kids,
Girl Scouts, Boy Scouts, Cub Scouts, all the other
affiliated groups for a great group photo --
That's very sweet.
-- when we drove up to the front door.
So we were talking, we were talking about Colombia.
What are some of the top-line messages coming out of that?
Coming out of that, I think you're gonna see us also working closely
to help the Colombians
address the issue of the Venezuelan refugee populations. They've had over
500,000 Venezuelans cross the border and
the Secretary
told
President Santos, we will look at ways that we can help provide some of the assistance that we'd like to be able to deliver inside
Venezuela
but the Maduro regime won't let us to those Venezuelans who are now outside of the country. The idea is to keep them near their border
so that when democracy is restored they can go home.
I remember you
and I talking about this not too long ago, about how many people would cross the border to get food or medicine for the day
into Colombia, but then they would actually return home. At the time, they were quite a few
people doing that. Where is that now? Now that it's sometime later.
Yeah, there are still large numbers crossing, but the
actual refugee population in Colombia is growing,
they're getting to as far as Bogota to Cartagena.
But the other thing we learned on this trip is their big Venezuelan populations now in Lima, in
in Buenos Aires, and they are, they are
increasingly leaving the country out of, out of the desperation, because of the economic situation.
You know, as we're talking about Venezuela the Maduro regime just announced snap elections,
I believe to be held in April, which is earlier than they were supposed to hold elections. I mean, this is a Maduro regime
thing that they came up with. What are we expecting to happen out of that?
President Santos and President Macri have already been out saying this these will not be legitimate elections, and we will not recognize
the results
the Lima Group in Peru
put out a very strong statement as well saying these elections, they won't be free,
they won't be fair, and they will not be legitimate. The international community will not recognize them, and so
we're going to keep the pressure campaign on, in Venezuela, and the Secretary
went to Jamaica also and
you know the Caribbean has been particularly vulnerable to Venezuelan influence, but --
They get their cheap oil from there, right?
-- That's right and
the Prime Minister really
reiterated that not just Jamaica
but the countries of the Caribbean are concerned, because it is a step away from democracy, and democracy is
the organizing principle in this hemisphere.
I remember last year that some of the Caribbean nations who rely on Venezuela for inexpensive oil kind of
stood in the way of the OAS and its ability to crack down on the Maduro regime, not the people of Venezuela
but the regime itself, to put pressure on it. I would imagine that some of your conversations in Jamaica
included reminding them of the human rights, the human rights condition, the
humanitarian situation in Venezuela.
Are we seeing these Caribbean nations come along to the other countries, to our country's, to Mexico's point of view?
Now well slowly, but surely
Some key members are moving with us
and
the challenge is there are a number of countries
in the Caribbean Community of nations, and they generally try to work together
by consensus
but they understand. They know what's happening inside Venezuela. They see it. And
we're beginning to find partners like Jamaica that are willing to call it out.
Well, it's disturbing to see the pictures out of Venezuela and the people who want
peace, they want democracy, and a lot of nations would like to help them out.
And the Secretary said we we also need to be aware that any steps we take about, against Venezuela,
sanctions, have a
collateral impact in the Caribbean, because these are small countries, small economies, and as you said
have been very dependent on
Venezuelan oil and foreign assistance.
Well, I know we're ready to help with some aid in Venezuela, if we can eventually get that in. I know that's something you're working
hard toward doing.
And we are going to continue doing that.
All right, thanks a lot.
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The Readout: A Conversation on U.S. Engagement in the Western Hemisphere

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