Host thanks for the call. Demonstrateankings there are a number of places that are not doing a good job for their employees or the american public. The reason we do these rankings is to make sure the individual you know is not one anecdote, but we are able to collect the data and demonstrate from a data perspective where things are working and where they are not. It sounds like, for your friends, it is not. There are a number of agencies where there are a lot of good actions were agencies are doing a lot of things, listening to their employees, and creating a culture where they recognize that if they empower the employees, the organization will do better. Hope more leaders will Pay Attention to this. We are driving as hard as we can to bang the drum so that the voice of the employee is actually heard. Megan el call from we have a call from macon. Megan. One reason i think there are so many disgruntled federal employees, we have to work under legislation that we cannot affect and we cannot try to change. That is because of the hatch act. I know it is in place for protection, but when you get out people makingea, these decisions do not know how it affects us and what it is doing on the front lines. Those of us that would like to change that cannot because it is against the law. One issue you highlight is congress is a big part of the problem. Seen,ghting that we have the lack of budgets, the lack of longterm energy that is put into thinking about how to do years,over multiple congress is a big contributor to the dysfunctionality. With respect to the hatch act, there are balancing equities at risk. The effort is to try to create a meritbased group of folks that are not involved in the political process so there is a sense of protection for the employee and the public. Insights, you are right, the from line, they know things are better than anybody else, your insights should be communicated and heard by leaders in your organizations. That becomes a pipeline for congress to hear about what should change. That is what we are trying to drive towards. The best places to work survey can be found online. We appreciate you coming in to talk about it with us. Guest thank you for having me. Host that will be it for the washington journal. Were going to take you to the Woodrow Wilson center where they will have a conversation with tom shannon. He served as ambassador to brazil. He will be talking about the outlook related to his new role as secretary of state to john kerry. Thanks for watching. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2013] good morning. Good morning to our good friends in the audience. I am jane harman. I am delighted to welcome you to this before the christmas holiday. The Wilson Center knows a lot about brazil. So does tom shannon. Is thezil institute premier place in washington for dialogue on u. S. Brazil policy. We were first to honor the president of brazil. We sponsor the brazil economic conference. We host brazilian governors and legislators. Air the good, the bad, and the ugly in our relationship. Represents the good. He is back in washington as Senior Advisor to secretary kerry. Rumors abouts of his future. Brazil is to be in bricks. Russo was an alleged target of u. S. Surveillance. Addressed by mr. Sharon. Before asking tony to introduce tom, let me applaud the efforts of washington and brazil to move tot the snowden issues and reschedule president rousseff visit to early next year. I strongly disagree with what Edward Snowden did, but i welcome the public debate about how we should restart, reset what we do on surveillance. As the two largest economies and democracies of the americas, our interests are more convergent than divergent. Theom shannon likes to say, challenge for the u. S. And brazilian governments is to catch up and align policies to this reality. That is why tom shannon is here. He will help us understand the landscape in this post snowden era. Let me turn the program over to tony harrington. He served as u. S. Ambassador to brazil during the clinton administration. Welcome, tony. Thank you. Thank you, jane. Thank you for the fine leadership that you bring to this Important Institution in washington. I first met tom shannon in 1999 when i was unexpectedly preparing to go to brazil as u. S. Ambassador. Mandate to update an important and under attended bilateral relationship. Otero aboutaulos the same time. My appreciation and understanding of brazil. Director atstaff the time and it was apparent that he was not only knowledgeable about brazil, but had developed an unusual awareness and affection for the country while serving as assistant to a prior u. S. Ambassador. Help, wes advice and were able to conclude significant agreements and open new space in u. S. Brazil cooperation. Rising star in our foreign service. He was white house senior. Irector the brazilian government was delighted to see him come back to brazil. He was nominated as an accomplished ambassador to longrned briefly enough to add a couple of gray hairs as secretary of Political Affairs at the request of secretary clinton. Two jobs, one salary. Year, tom was nominated and confirmed by the senate to the ambassador. Er it is a rare recognition of extraordinarily distinguished members of the u. S. Foreign 53vice, given to only diplomats over the last 50 years. As jane noted, secretary kerry to the innerom circle as Senior Advisor and history continues to unfold. As ambassador tom was the architect between the u. S. And eriod offter a p someone lays in the relationship. In the malays relationship. President obama made an unprecedented early visit to to a veryhis address congregation, he observed it was time that brazil and the u. S. Enjoy a level of engagement on par with that of u. S. With china and india for example. It helped reset the relationship. The openness and engagement was a constructive step and it was followed by president rousseff visit here. As brazilu. S. Me Strategic Partnerships for the 21st century. Agendas were set at the level that we need to get on with. This mutual highlevel outreach would not have happened without the skill and diplomacy of our ambassador at work in brazil and back home. As we know, further elevation in the brazilu. S. Relationship was emphasized by the state visit planned a couple months ago. Visit, state visit to washington, was more than 18 years ago. All of you are aware of the depth elements the developments that led to the two president s to announce the postponement of the visit. I hope the review of the National SecurityAgency Intelligence programs will resolve questions that are recognized as legitimate. In so doing, this will permit andheduling of the visit moving forward with the relationship. Having paid attention to the relationship since i was ambassador, i believe the reasons that led president obama to make the invitation and president rousseff to accept remain valid and current. Engagement iseper in the interest of both governments. The Civil Societies in both countries and the business sectors whose interest are , and policy objectives of the u. S. And brazil business communities are remarkably the same. I heard these influence of interests clearly stated and reiterated when i was in brazil the Clinton Global Initiative in rio and then the largest annual Conference Held by the National Confederation of industry in brazil. Both occasions addressed by president rousseff. Opened thelinton Clinton Global Initiative was also asked by the National Confederation of ,ndustry to address the body but he was prevented because of in connection with a memorial for president mandela. Cni told me itof was the largest gathering they had and several people called up saying they wanted to hear bill clinton do his thing. The awkwardness around the nsa thees in no way diminish achievements of the service of our just returned ambassador, tom shannon. Are fortunate to have him serving with secretary kerry. It has been a personal privilege to work with tom shannon for more than a dozen years, as i know it is a pleasure for all of us to have him with us here this morning to share perspectives that are unique on the state of relations and the future of relations in u. S. Brazil. We will have some time for discussion moderated by Brazil Institute director paulos otero, as well. Please help me welcome tom shannon. [applause] good morning. It is a great pleasure to be here. Two jane harman, thank you so much to your welcome. To tony harrington, thank you for your kind words. My mother appreciates them. Otero, thank you for the tremendous work you have done here at the institute. Before we came out here, we were talking about the work that the and theWilson CenterBrazil Institute are doing on our larger western hemisphere issues. As many of you know, this is a busy town. A variety of diversion and immediate interests and keeping our thoughtleaders and leaders focused on our larger neighborhood. Sometimes it is a challenge. You have institutes like the issuea council expressing in trying to establish their own focus, then distribute to the richness of this field and the importance of it. I am grateful for the tremendous work that you have done here. Thank you. This was built as a conversation with me, so i would like to make a conversation as quickly as possible. Up tod like to open this address your interests and your concerns. Want to saythat, i a few things and share a few thoughts. Many of you know i spent nearly four years in brazil. Fortune ofthe good being asked by secretary kerry to work with him on broader issues. I am being globalized. My interest in brazil has not waned. Brazil inserts itself deeper into the world, its will not let me go it will not let me go. I will have a profound interest in u. S. Brazil relationships. Brazil and unity you and the United States look to share cooperative pads that will benefit both of our countries. I was four years ago, invited by paulos to speak here. In that instance, i made a few assertions. The first was that, although brazil had been described as an emerging power, i said that i did not agree with that. It was not emerging. It had already emerged. Roles already exercising a as an important global player. It needed to be recognized and understood. I said that brazils emergence was a product of its domestic transformation as it addressed longstanding social and equities like poverty, inequality, and social exclusion. They built a functioning democracy and created one of the largest economies in the world. A economy which was building Large Consumer base to middle class that was globalizing as it developed. Putting brazil in contact with the United States and that this new engagement with brazil, whether it was in the middle east, africa, asia, or in the americas, it meant that the United States had do had to understand brazil in a different light. Brazil also had to rethink its relationship with the United States. That whilenoted grenville brazil in the United States had historically been friendly, there was a polite distance that we had gone about our business. Increasingly, we have seen more connectivity between our thatties and our peoples was going to affect our diplomacy and Foreign Policy towards each other. With time, our people and werety were be going going to become the drivers of our relationship and not our government. I would argue that i was right in all of those assertions. Else, my four years in brazil have convinced me that they are still valued. Id. Val its own brazil has seen fair share of internal political with the many demonstrations we saw across brazil, this is evidence of the health of brazilian democracy. There is broad public space for citizens to demonstrate and protest and make their views heard. Brazilian institutions have the capacity to respond in a meaningful way. Understandahead, we brazils domestic transformation , because it was done within a market context, has shown that the market see democracy and the markets are not about status quo or protecting privileges. They are about creating space. The people themselves can have a central role in determining the developmental direction of a company. A country. This is a powerful message. It is a powerful message to countries around the world. Whether it is moving from a target Development Model to ones of regional integration, and whether it is moving from isolation to globalization, i think brazil has laid out a pathway or an example of sorts that should being courage and. As just to the United States we look to influence the world in ways that are meaningful to us, but also as countries try to determine how they can harness the peace and stability that democracy and markets can offer to address social challenges. View, ouroint of ability to work with brazil and engage with them, not just bilaterally, but globally, and to try to shape areas and methods of water ration, whether it is in methods of foreign assistance, agricultural, public pollutereas, a dressing peaceful resolutions ,ddressing peaceful resolutions or factoring broad trade agreements, how we relate to brazil and how they relate to us is going to be important. Striking things that has happened over the past several years has been the ouring connectivity between societies and people. The most evident and dramatic evidence of that is in tourism. Over the past 10 years, our visa demand has increased by over 600 . It increased by 32 last year and continues on an upward swing, even with the brazilian economy has slowed considerably. ,he Exchange Rate has declined as far as brazilian consumers in taurus are concerned. This indicates Brazilian Society is globalizing at a fast pace. Connectingare broadly in the United States, whether it be as tourists or investors area investors. Regard, what we are seeing increasingly as a response from the United States for growing interest in brazil and increase in tourism, although not at the same level we are seeing on the brazilian side. It is a dramatic increase in business and investment areas. The travel to the u. S. Of governors, mayors, state Economic Development leaders, businesses, it has been remarkable. We have seen a significant increase in our bilateral trade. Well over 100 billion in goods and services. This is a trade potential that is only being barely exploited. There is a lot more that can and should be done. The focus of our relationship on has been one of the priorities of this administration. Certainly, one of the priorities of secretary clinton. It remains a priority of secretary kerry. What is striking about the emergence of this new believe,ity is that i increasingly, our societies will determine the direction of our relationship. Both of our governments, by anchorage and this, will build a balance in the relationship by encouraging this, will build a balance in the relationship. We are creating a constituency that will will demand our governments to solve problems that we might not be willing or prepared to address in the immediate moment. That will bring me to the disclosure portion eventually. I get there, the larger point i want to make is that as we look at this relationship over the past several years, our purpose was to build what we call a 21st Century Partnership. I told the press when i arrived that, andin february it has become a mantra of the relationship. It was used as the slogan of our relationship when president rousseff visited the United States the first time. As we built out this 21st Century Partnership and realize we needed to build a more solid and robust dialogue structure, we realized we needed to focus on the quality of dialogue. We needed to connect our governments at leader levels to ensure that our bureaucracies had clear direction and impetus to move forward on important issues. That our points of view converged. This does not mean they were always the same. There are still some stark differences. What is important, we found important areas of cooperation and concern. Whether it is around climate change, food security, transnational crime, the proliferation of weapons, just to name a few. As we did this, we recognized that we needed to build a 21st century platform for this relationship. Real of you who are brazilianists and can remember when we had consulates in many , along with our embassy ourio de janeiro and consulates, over time, that has shrunk down to an embassy in brazil and consulate generals sao paulo. Havingructure, consulates on the coast and an is likein brasilia having a consulate in cleveland. It doesnt work. The president s decision to authorize us to open or reopen consulates in two cities was an important step in expanding our presence on the ground and tapping into a very large, passive population of potential visitors to the United States who had not been able to travel because they were unwilling to travel to the coast or to brasilia to look for the says. It also expands our commercial investment our reach. It is my hope over time that we will be able to expand our presence even further and build back the kind of Geographic Presence that we need to address a country of continental proportions. Component oftant our 21stcentury platform is rebuilding our brazil experts. Centerpiece of our hemispheric diplomacy for a long time. Because of the consulates we had in the region and the u. S. Presence, we had a large number of portuguese speakers who knew it well, andknew serve