Hemispheric Integration

The Center for U.S. Global Engagement and its partners, the Greater Miami Chamber of Commerce and University of Miami’s Center for Hemispheric Policy, today launched its Impact ’08 in Florida initiative with a luncheon and foreign policy discussion featuring former Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security and US Coast Guard Commandant Admiral James Loy and Robert Mallett, Pfizer Inc’s Senior Vice President for Worldwide Public Affairs and Policy and President of the Pfizer Foundation.

Good morning. I am pleased to welcome my colleagues, the Foreign Minister* of Mexico, Foreign Minister* Espinosa and the Foreign Minister of Canada, Foreign Minister Bernier, to this meeting. We have had an opportunity to discuss a number of issues this morning, and we will continue over lunch to go further into our discussions. Obviously, the relationship between the United States, Canada and Mexico is one of the most critical from the point of view of American foreign policy. The President said very early on that a good foreign policy begins in the neighborhood, and we have no closer and more important neighbors than Canada and Mexico.