[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: George W. Bush (2007, Book I)]
[March 5, 2007]
[Pages 229-237]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]



Remarks to the United States Hispanic Chamber of Commerce Legislative 
Conference
March 5, 2007

    Thank you all. Please be seated--sientese. Buenas tardes. [Laughter] 
Gracias por la bienvenida. For those of you not from Texas, that means 
``good afternoon''--[laughter]--and thank you for the welcome. I'm 
honored to be back again with the men and women of the Hispanic Chamber. 
I appreciate your hospitality.
    I'm pleased to report, the economy of the United States is strong, 
and one of the reasons why is because the entrepreneurial spirit of 
America is strong. And the entrepreneurial spirit of America is 
represented in this room.
    I thank you for the role of the chamber. I appreciate so very much 
the work you do with our banks to help move capital. I appreciate so 
very much the fact that you recognize outstanding Latina businesswomen 
through your Anna Maria Arias Fund. I appreciate the fact that you say 
loud and clear, el Sueno Americano es para todos.
    I strongly believe that the role of government is to make it clear 
that America is the land of opportunity. I think the best way to do that 
is to encourage business formation, encourage ownership; is to say, if 
you work hard and dream big, you can realize your dreams here in 
America. I also believe it's essential to make sure that when people 
take risk, that they're able to keep more of their own taxes. Congress 
needs to make the tax cuts we passed a permanent part of the Tax Code.
    I know that in order for us to make sure el Sueno Americano es para 
todos, that we have an education system that sets high standards for all 
children, demands accountability in our schools, so that we can say with 
certainty, children from all backgrounds are able to read and write and 
add and subtract. That is why I believe it is essential that Congress 
reauthorize the No Child Left Behind Act.
    I think it's very important for us to continue to expand Federal 
contracting opportunities for small businesses and to make sure that 
America is a place of promise and hope. It is important and essential 
that Congress pass comprehensive immigration reform that I can sign into 
law.
    I want to talk about another important priority for our country, and 
that is helping our neighbors to the south of us build a better and 
productive life. Thursday, Laura and I are going 
to leave on a trip that will take us to Brazil and Uruguay and Colombia 
y Guatemala y por fin, Mexico. [Laughter] These are countries that are 
part of a region that has made great strides toward freedom and 
prosperity. They've raised up new democracies. They've enhanced and 
undertaken fiscal policies that bring stability.
    Yet despite the advances, tens of millions in our hemisphere remain 
stuck in poverty and shut off from the promises of the new century. My 
message to those trabajadores y campesinos is: You have a friend in the

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United States of America; we care about your plight.
    David, thank you very much for being 
the chairman of this important organization and for the invitation. I 
want to thank Michael Barrera, who is the 
president and CEO of the Hispanic Chamber. I thank my friend y Tejano 
Massey Villarreal, who is with us today. 
Massey, it's good to see you again. You've got a barba crecida. 
[Laughter] Looking good, though, man. I thank Frank Lopez, who is the president and CEO of Chamber Foundation.
    I want to thank members of my Cabinet who have come. I think it's a 
good sign that this administration recognizes the importance of having a 
neighborhood that is peaceful and flourishing--that we have so many 
members of the Cabinet who have joined us today. I want to thank Carlos 
Gutierrez, who's living the--
[applause]--Secretary of Labor Elaine Chao--
Madam Secretary; Secretary of Health and Human Services Michael 
Leavitt; Secretary of Education 
Margaret Spellings--Madam Secretary. 
Thank you all for coming.
    Tom Shannon, representing the 
State Department; Ambassador Randy Tobias, 
who runs USAID, who, by the way, prior to this assignment, led one of 
the most important initiatives in my administration that has helped to 
fight the pandemic of HIV/AIDS. I appreciate your service there, and I 
now appreciate your service at USAID, Randy. I want to thank John 
Veroneau, who is with us today, who is the 
Deputy U.S. Trade Representative.
    We've got Members of the United States Congress with us today, 
powerful Members of the Senate and the House. I am so grateful they are 
here, starting with Senator Dick Lugar 
of the great State of Indiana. Appreciate you coming. Norm 
Coleman from Minnesota--Senator, thank you for 
being here. A buddy of mine, Jerry Weller, 
Congressman Weller from Illinois, proud you're here; thanks for coming.
    Los Embajadores que estan aqui--the Ambassadors. Thank you all for 
being here. I see some of the Ambassadors for the countries to which 
I'll be going. I'm sure all of them are here, and I appreciate you 
coming. Thanks for your time.
    This is an important speech for me today. It's a speech that sets 
out a direction for this country in regards to our neighborhood. A 
former President gave such a speech 46 years ago this month. President 
John Kennedy spoke to ambassadors from across the Americas, this time in 
the East Room of the White House. He began by citing the early movements 
of independence in the Latin American Republics. He invoked the dream of 
a hemisphere growing in liberty and prosperity. That's what he talked 
about 46 years ago. He proposed a bold new Alliance for Progress to help 
the countries of this hemisphere meet the basic needs of their people--
safe homes and decent jobs and good schools, access to health care.
    In the years since President Kennedy spoke, we have witnessed great 
achievements for freedom in this neighborhood. As recently as a 
generation ago, this region was plagued by military dictatorship and 
consumed by civil strife. Today, 34 members of the OAS have democratic 
constitutions, and only one member country lives under a leader not of 
its people's choosing.
    From New York to Rio de Janeiro to Buenos Aires and Montreal, we 
speak different languages, but our democracies all derive their 
legitimacy from the same source: the consent of the governed. The 
expansion of freedom has brought our societies much closer. Today, the 
most important ties between North and South America are not government 
to government; they are people to people. And those ties are growing.
    These ties are growing because of our churches and faith-based 
institutions, which understand that the call to love our neighbors as 
ourselves does not stop at our borders. These ties are growing because 
of our businesses, which trade and invest billions in each other's 
countries. These ties

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are growing because of the outreach of our universities, which brings 
thousands of exchange students and teachers to their campuses. These 
ties are growing because of the estimated $45 billion that workers in 
the United States send back to their families in Latin America and the 
Caribbean each year, one of the largest private economic initiatives in 
the world.
    In all these ways, our two continents are becoming more than 
neighbors united by the accident of geography; we're becoming a 
community linked by common values and shared interests in the close 
bonds of family and friendship. These growing ties have helped advance 
peace and prosperity on both continents. Yet amid the progress, we also 
see terrible want. Nearly one out of four people in Latin America lives 
on less than $2 a day. Many children never finish grade school. Many 
mothers never see a doctor. In an age of growing prosperity and 
abundance, this is a scandal--and it's a challenge. The fact is that 
tens of millions of our brothers and sisters to the south have seen 
little improvement in their daily lives, and this has led some to 
question the value of democracy.
    The working poor of Latin America need change, and the United States 
of America is committed to that change. It is in our national interests; 
it is in the interest of the United States of America to help the people 
in democracies in our neighborhood succeed. When our neighbors are 
prosperous and peaceful, it means better opportunities and more security 
for our own people. When there are jobs in our neighborhood, people are 
able to find work at home and not have to migrate to our country. When 
millions are free from poverty, societies are stronger and more hopeful.
    So we're helping to increase opportunity by relieving debt and 
opening up trade, encouraging reform and delivering aid that empowers 
the poor and the marginalized. And the record of this administration in 
promoting social justice is a strong record and an important record. 
Social justice begins with building government institutions that are 
fair and effective and free of corruption.
    In too many places in the Americas, a government official is seen as 
someone who serves himself at the expense of the public good or serves 
only the rich and the well-connected. No free society can function this 
way. Social justice begins with social trust. So we're working with our 
partners to change old patterns and ensure that government serves all 
its citizens.
    One of the most important changes we're making is the way we deliver 
aid. We launched a new program called the Millennium Challenge Account, 
which provides increased aid to nations that govern justly, invest in 
the education and health of their people, and promote economic freedom. 
So far, we've signed Millennium Challenge compacts with three Latin 
American nations. We've also signed an agreement with a fourth country 
that is working to meet the standards to qualify for a compact on its 
own. In the coming years, these agreements will provide a total of $885 
million in new aid, so long as these countries continue to meet the 
standards of the Millennium Challenge program. We'll send more as we 
reach more agreements with other nations.
    By the way, this aid comes on top of the standard bilateral 
assistance that we provide. When I came into office, the United States 
was sending about $860 million a year in foreign aid to Latin America 
and the Caribbean. Last year, we nearly doubled that amount, to a total 
of $1.6 billion. Altogether, thanks to the good work of Members of the 
United States Congress, we have sent a total of $8.5 billion to the 
region, with a special focus on helping the poor.
    Let me share with you one example of how our aid is working for 
people in the region. Oh, it's a small example, but it had profound 
impact. A few years ago, we funded a project to help a town in Paraguay,

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set up a web site that makes all local government transactions public, 
from budget spending to employee salaries. The purpose was to help the 
people of Villarrica improve their local governance through greater 
transparency. It was a small gesture at first. But when they brought 
transparency into their government, they discovered that some government 
employees had used fake receipts to embezzle thousands of dollars from 
the city government. The mayor informed the public, and the employees 
who had stolen the money were tried and convicted, and they paid it 
back. For the people of Paraguay, this was an historic achievement. The 
local government had called its own officials to account at a public and 
transparent trial.
    The United States can help bring trust to their governments by 
instilling transparency in our neighborhood. It didn't take much of a 
gesture, but it had a profound impact.
    We're working for similar results in other nations. In El Salvador, 
we opened one of our international law enforcement academies. The new 
academy is helping governments in the region build effective criminal 
justice systems by training law enforcement officers to combat the drug 
lords and the terrorists and the criminal gangs and the human 
traffickers. Our efforts to strengthen these civic institutions are also 
supported by more than government, but by private programs run by U.S. 
law schools and professional associations and in volunteer 
organizations.
    In the coming months, this administration will convene a White House 
conference on the Western Hemisphere that will bring together 
representatives from the private sector and nongovernmental 
organizations and faith-based groups and volunteer associations. The 
purpose is to share experiences and discuss effective ways to deliver 
aid and build the institutions necessary for strong civil society. Is it 
in our interest we do so? Absolutely, it's in our interests. A 
transparent neighborhood will yield to a peaceful neighborhood, and 
that's in the interests of all citizens of our country.
    Social justice means meeting basic needs. The most precious resource 
of any country is its people, and in the Americas, we are blessed with 
an abundance of talented and hard-working citizens, decent, honorable 
people who work hard to make a living for their families. But without 
basic necessities like education and health care and housing, it is 
impossible for people to realize their full potential, their God-given 
potential.
    Helping people reach their potential begins with good education. 
That's why the Secretary of Education is 
here. Many people across the Americas either have no access to education 
for their children or they cannot afford it. If children don't learn how 
to read, write, and add and subtract, they're going to be shut off for 
the jobs of the 21st century. They'll be condemned to a life on the 
margins, and that's not acceptable.
    The United States is working for an Americas where every child has 
access to a decent school. It is a big goal, but it is a necessary goal, 
as far as we're concerned. When people in our neighborhood reach their 
full potential, it benefits the people of the United States. Over the 
past 3 years, we've provided more than $150 million--in 3 years' time, 
we spent $150 million for education programs throughout the region, with 
a special focus on rural and indigenous areas.
    Today I announce a new partnership for Latin American youth that's 
going to build on these efforts. This partnership will devote an 
additional $75 million over the next years--3 years to help thousands 
more young people improve their English and have the opportunity to 
study here in the United States. I think it's good policy when people 
from our neighborhood come to our country to study.
    I hope this warms the heart of our fellow citizens when I share this 
story. In the

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mountains of Guatemala, we established a project that helped raise the 
number of children who complete first grade from 51 percent to 71 
percent. In Peru, we helped create the Opening Doors Program to help 
girls get through grade school. That program is succeeding, and it is 
self-sustaining. Across Latin America and the Caribbean, our centers of 
excellence for teacher training--in other words, we've set up these 
centers, and we've trained 15,000 teachers; nearly 15,000 people have 
benefited. Does that matter? Of course it matters. When you train a 
teacher, you're really helping provide literacy for a child.
    These teachers have helped improve the literacy skills for nearly 
425,000 poor and disadvantaged students. It's important for our fellow 
citizens and the citizens in our neighborhood to understand that the 
United States of America is committed to helping people rise out of 
poverty, to be able to realize their full potential, and that starts 
with good education. By 2009, we expect to have trained a total of 
20,000 teachers through these centers, and reach 650,000 students.
    One person who has benefited is a young girl in the Dominican 
Republic named Lorenny. By the time she was 10, she had been in first 
grade three times, and she had never passed. When her mother enrolled 
her in school again, Lorenny said, ``Teacher, teach me to read, because 
I have learning problems.'' With patience and hard work, this good 
woman taught Lorenny to read and 
write. The teacher says that she had watched Lorenny blossom, and that 
she never would have been able to reach this girl without the know-how 
acquired through our teacher training program. Societies can change one 
heart at a time. Here is an example of the good work of the American 
people taking place in our neighborhood.
    Another person who felt the impact of U.S. education assistance is a 
25-year-old Mexican named Victor Lopez Ruiz. Victor's family lives in Chiapas, where opportunity is 
in short supply, and the people tend to speak only the languages of the 
local communities. Victor's family sold their only real asset, their 
cattle, to pay for him to learn Spanish and finish high school.
    In 2004, Victor won a USAID 
scholarship, which he used to learn English and study business in 
international trade at Scott Community College in Bettendorf, Iowa. It 
must have been quite an experience for a man from Chiapas to head into 
the heartland. [Laughter] But he did so with help from the taxpayers of 
the United States, for this reason: He goes back to Chiapas, he's 
working for his bachelor's degree in accounting, and then he's going to 
start a bakery that will support his family. Where the path for this man 
once looked grim, education has opened a new door. And as Victor said, 
``It changed my life.''
    There are countless of people like Victor and Lorenny across our hemisphere, young people filled 
with talent and ambition, only needing the chance of an education to 
unlock their full potential.
    Helping people reach their potential includes providing access to 
decent health care. In many of the same areas where families have no 
schools, they have no access to medical care. Since I took office, we've 
spent nearly $1 billion on health care programs in the region, all aimed 
at sending a message to the people of Latin America: We care for you. 
Los corazones de las personas aqui in America son grandes. It's in our 
interests that we get good health care to citizens in our neighborhood.
    Today I'm going to announce a new initiative called the Health Care 
Professional Training Center in Panama that will serve all of Central 
America. I remember when Secretary Leavitt briefed me on this vital program. The center is going to 
teach students how to be good nurses and technicians and health care 
workers. We'll also train people so they can go back to their home 
countries and teach others these same skill sets.

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    In all these efforts, it's important for you to understand the role 
our United States military plays. In June, I'm going to send one of our 
Navy's medical ships, the Comfort, to the region. The Comfort will make 
port calls in Belize and Guatemala and Panama, Nicaragua and El Salvador 
and Peru and Ecuador and Colombia, Haiti, and Trinidad and Tobago, 
Guyana, and Suriname. It's going to be busy. Altogether, the Comfort's 
doctors and nurses and health care professionals expect to treat 85,000 
patients and conduct up to 1,500 surgeries. These are people who need 
help. These are people who might not otherwise get the basic health care 
they need to realize a better tomorrow.
    The Comfort was also going to partner with the Department of Health 
and Human Services on a new initiative to provide oral care to the 
region's poor. Dentists and hygienists will fill cavities and treat 
infections and provide treatment for the young children.
    At the same time, military medical teams will be operating inland to 
help bring treatment and care to other communities. These teams do 
everything from vaccinating people against disease to building new 
medical clinics. The United States military is a symbol of strength for 
this Nation, but it's also a symbol of the great compassion of the 
American people and our desire to help those in our neighborhood who 
need help.
    With the deployment of the Comfort and the work of the military 
teams, we're making it absolutely clear to people that we care. One good 
example is an area of Nicaragua. Santa Teresa is a rural area where 250 
U.S. airmen, soldiers, and marines are now working with 30 members of 
the Nicaraguan Army to build a medical clinic. Many families in the area 
live in homes built of scrap wood with dirt floors and doorless 
entryways. For most of them, a doctor is too far away or too expensive. 
One man in Santa Teresa says, ``The impact of this clinic is going to be 
tremendous.''
    I want you to hear the words of a fellow from Nicaragua. He said, 
``We're so glad you're here. People around here are noticing that the 
United States is doing something for them.'' And my message to the man 
is, we're proud to do so, and we do so because we believe in peace and 
the dignity of every human being on the face of the Earth.
    Helping people reach their potential requires a commitment to 
improving housing. A strong housing industry can be an engine of 
economic growth and social stability and poverty reduction. Most Latin 
American capitals' high prices and high interest rates make good housing 
hard to afford. So the United States is launching a new effort to help 
build a market for affordable housing. Through the Overseas Private 
Investment Corporation, we've provided more than $100 million that is 
being used to help underwrite mortgages to working families in Mexico 
and Brazil and Chile and the countries of Central America. Now we're 
going to provide another $385 million to expand these programs and help 
put the dream of homeownership within the reach of thousands of more 
people in our neighborhood.
    On these three vital social issues--education and health care and 
housing--we're making a difference across the Americas. You see, by 
investing in programs and empower people, we will help the working 
families of our hemisphere build a more hopeful future for themselves.
    Finally, social justice requires economies that make it possible for 
workers to provide for their families and to rise in society. For too 
long and in too many places, opportunity in Latin America has been 
determined by the accident of birth rather than by the application of 
talents and initiative. In his many writings, Pope John Paul II spoke 
eloquently about creating systems that respect the dignity of work and 
the right to private initiative. Latin America needs capitalism for the 
campesino, a true capitalism that allows people who start from

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nothing to rise as far as their skills and their hard work can take 
them. So the United States is helping these nations build growing 
economies that are open to the world, economies that will provide 
opportunity to their people.
    One of the most important ways is by helping to relieve the burden 
of debt. In the past, many nations in this region piled up debt that 
they simply cannot repay. Every year, their governments have to spend 
huge amounts of money just to make interest payments on the debt. So 
under my administration, we worked with the Group of Eight 
industrialized nations to reduce the debt of Latin America and Caribbean 
nations by $4.8 billion. The members of the Inter-American Development 
Bank are close to an agreement on another debt relief initiative, and we 
look forward to helping them complete it. This agreement will cancel 3.4 
billion owned by some of the poorest countries in our hemisphere: 
Bolivia and Guyana and Haiti and Honduras and Nicaragua. That works out 
to about $110 for every man, woman, and child in these countries, monies 
that their government should use to invest in the education and health 
of their citizens.
    People of this region have the talent and drive they need to 
succeed. These are hard-working folks. I used to remind people in Texas, 
family values didn't stop at the Rio Grande River. There's a lot of 
mothers and dads in our neighborhood who care deeply about whether or 
not their children can grow up in a hopeful society. What they need is--
in order to be able to realize that hope--is better access to capital. 
The entrepreneurial spirit is strong, strong in this room, and it's 
strong throughout the region. But what we need is capital.
    And so over the past 5 years, the United States has devoted more 
than $250 million to help the entrepreneurial spirit flourish in our 
region. This funding includes microcredit loans for people starting 
small businesses. And these loans have been very successful, and I 
appreciate the Congress appropriating money for these microloans.
    I'm also directing Secretary Rice and 
Secretary Paulson to develop a new 
initiative that will help U.S. and local banks improve their ability to 
extend good loans to small businesses. It's in our interest that 
businesses flourish in our own neighborhood. Flourishing businesses 
provide jobs for people at home. They provide customers for U.S. 
products.
    As we help local entrepreneurs get the capital they need, we're also 
going to open up new opportunities through trade and investment. If 
you're a rural farmer scratching out a subsistence living, wouldn't you 
want to be able to sell your goods to new markets overseas? I think so. 
You're trying to make a living, and the market is closed--it seems to 
make sense that you should want to be able to sell into a larger 
universe.
    If you're a worker looking for a job, wouldn't you want more 
employers competing for your labor? The more employers there are in your 
neighborhood, the more likely it is you're going to find a better job. 
That's not really sophisticated math or economics, it just happens to be 
the truth, la verdad.
    When I took office, the United States had trade agreements with only 
two nations in our hemisphere. We've now negotiated agreements with 10 
more. We're working for a strong agreement of the Doha round of global 
trade talks that will level the playing field for farmers and workers 
and small businesses in our country and throughout the hemisphere.
    Entrepreneurs are taking advantage of the markets we've helped open. 
Here's an interesting story for you. Mariano Canu, he was an indigenous farmer in Guatemala whose land 
provided barely enough corn and beans to feed his family. He was 
scratching to get ahead. No one in his family had ever been to college. 
Most of the people in his village never got past the sixth grade. 
Mariano began tilling the fields

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at age 7. He had spent his life in grinding poverty, and it looked as 
though his children would suffer the same fate.
    Trade helped him a lot, and here's how. To take advantage of new 
market opportunities, he organized an 
association of small farmers called Labradores Mayas. These farmers 
began growing vegetables that they could sell overseas, high-valued 
crops like lettuce and carrots and celery. They took out a loan. Capital 
matters. It's important to have capital available if we want our 
neighbors to be able to realize a better tomorrow. And they built an 
irrigation system with that loan. And soon they were selling their crops 
to large companies like Wal-Mart Central America. With the money Mariano 
has earned, he was able to send his son to college. Today, Labradores is 
thriving business that supports more than 1,000 jobs in production and 
transportation and the marketing of internationally sold vegetables.
    One of the stops on my trip is going to be to see Mariano. I can't wait to congratulate him on not losing hope 
and faith. I also look forward to seeing a thriving enterprise that 
began with one dream, and it's in the interests of the United States to 
promote those dreams. People like Mariano are showing what the people of 
this region can accomplish when given a chance. By helping our neighbors 
build strong and vibrant economies, we increase the standard of living 
for all of us.
    You know, not far from the White House is a statue of the great 
liberator, Simon Bolivar. He's often compared to George Washington--
``Jorge'' W. [Laughter] Like Washington, he was a general who fought for 
the right of his people to govern themselves. Like Washington, he 
succeeded in defeating a much stronger colonial power. And like 
Washington, he belongs to all of us who love liberty. One Latin American 
diplomat put it this way: ``Neither Washington nor Bolivar was destined 
to have children of their own, so that we Americans might call ourselves 
their children.''
    We are the sons and daughters of this struggle, and it is our 
mission to complete the revolution they began on our two continents. The 
millions across our hemisphere who, every day, suffer the degradations 
of poverty and hunger have a right to be impatient. And I'm going to 
make them this pledge: The goal of this great country, the goal of a 
country full of generous people, is an Americas where the dignity of 
every person is respected, where all find room at the table, and where 
opportunity reaches into every village and every home. By extending the 
blessings of liberty to the least among us, we will fulfill the destiny 
of this new world and set a shining example for others.
    Que Dios les bendiga.

Note: The President spoke at 1:13 p.m. at the Ronald Reagan Building and 
International Trade Center. In his remarks, he referred to David C. 
Lizarraga, chairman of the board of directors, U.S. Hispanic Chamber of 
Commerce; Massey Villarreal, chairman of the board of directors, U.S. 
Hispanic Chamber of Commerce Foundation; and Juana Brunilda Rodriguez, 
teacher, Jose Armando Bermudez School in Santiago, Dominican Republic. 
The Office of the Press Secretary also released a Spanish language 
transcript of these remarks.

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