this has been my third summit of the americas and my eighth visit to latin america. my trip reflects, as i mentioned earlier, a new era of u.s. engagement in the region. over the past few days we ve advanced our engagement across the board. in keeping with the interamerican democratic charter, we continue to stand up strongly for democracy and human rights. this was the first summit of the americas to include a formal role for civil society. as i said at yesterday s forum the united states will continue to deepen our support for civil society groups across the americas and around the world. i m pleased that there was widespread agreement among the nations here that civil society groups have a permanent role in future summits. the united states will support this work through the new innovations center we re creating to empower civil society groups across latin america. how to promote greater opportunity for the cuban people was also a major focus of my meeting with president castro. the
against a resolution to condemn the u.s. embargo. even the marshall islands abandoned the u.s. on the u.n. there s a different way of framing it than i had been doing previously. this isn t about what s good for cuba, this is a question about what is reasonable u.s. policy. no national security threat and it s 90 miles off the coast. there s a $1.2 billion potential economic capacity and even if there are the kinds of human rights violations that people wouldn t suggest there aren t, we have relationships with others from a perspective, taking the cuban welfare question out, is there a good reason to continue the embargo? as the sole dissenting voice on this panel, i have soc much much i want to say. the only standard for cuba is that of the other 34 countries in the western hemisphere. it s called the interamerican democratic charter.
34 out of 35 countries in in hemisphere have signed on to the interamerican democratic charter and accept representative democracy. even the chavez government does so in venezuela. this is an anomaly of what should be a fully democratic hemisphere. in our interest here, the last thing we want to return to in in western hemisphere are dictatorships of the left or the right. let me get your response to some of that, sophia. that s a pretty comprehensive claim he s making. it fails to recognize the sovereignty of the cubans and the cuban nation to make their own decisions about how they want to run their country. the united states doesn t have the right to tell any other country how it should operate. cubans in cuba should have the right to determine who they want to run their government and houp they want their democracy or whatever we want to claim should operate. i don t think any of us has the right to throw stones at what s going on in cuba because we have