Out to more people has to be doubled, has to be made more real. And that brings us to the issue of education where we know there is a huge deficit in the region. The regions Higher Education institutions remain not up to the challenge of the 21st century, and many leaders recognize this. So we will continue to push where we can with 100,000 strong in the americas program, which was now awarded 38 innovation grants to 100 Higher Education institutions in 12 countries. I am proud we are continuing to work on this and really moving ahead with a lot of private sector partnerships in a lot of countries, but we need to do even more at partnering. We know that wholesale connection, what we are doing is connecting institutions to institution. We are not funding individual scholarships. We know that connecting universities and colleges to universities and colleges will raise the number of students who go on these exchanges faster than funding individual scholarships. We have seen the numbers of students rising over the last couple of years by 1213 in each direction already. We have to get that up even higher. We know that these models work and they work not just at the harvard, yale and stanford. In fact, its much more important that we focus on Community Colleges in the United States, and a growing number of countries that are looking at this model for their own use. Technical colleges, in mexico and other things that are training students for 21st century jobs that are not, and i am a deeply committed social science person and humanities person, but that are not necessary going to make them unemployable with an anthropology degree or a degree in one of the sciences, social sciences that they may not be able to use. An example would be a woman named my ra from a Small Community in honduras who obtained a degree in Business Management for making nerdy college in iowa through seed which is scholarship education and Economic Development would be putting 50 million for 1300 students. Mira established when she went back to honduras a Coffee Company which helped a group of traditional small coffee farmers export to the United States tripling their profit. It returned more than 30,000 to farmers through its Profit Sharing and social welfare program. Which is really, really powerful. The last thing you want to talk about is energy and the environment because the other impediment that we know keeps areas of this hemisphere from realizing their full potential is high cost of energy in some places, and what we are looking at in this hemisphere on the other side of the issue on Climate Change is huge Energy Resources to be exploited, enormous, enormous wealth in the energy sector, but the possibility of doing it responsibly and sustainably as we face Climate Change crises around the globe, especially when we look at increasing weather events in Central America that can be disastrous an obvious concern in the caribbean and island states. More than 31 million citizens in this hemisphere lack affordable energy, and we expect electricity demand in this region to double over the next decade. Which is why will launch the energy and Climate Partnership of the americas and connecting the americas 2022, to promote renewable energy, efficiency cleaner fossil fuels, resilient infrastructure and intercommunication interconnection rather. There are a number of examples i could give you on this but we are seeing much greater connectivity among countries in Central America, now completed the connection in 2014 that connected 37 Million Consumers in costa rica, el salvador, guatemala, nicaragua and panama. We know that energy costs, electricity rates, energy costs and Central America and the caribbean are way above what many other countries taken a special what we pay in the United States and that is holding back economic progress unless we can encourage connectivity and the ability to move energy from the places in the hemisphere that have it and are developing it to places in hemisphere that will never be selfsustaining on energy, at least not in the short term, and bring those energy costs down, we will never be able to overcome cycles of economic difficulty. And with it, cycles of migration, poverty and violence such as we see in Central America and the caribbean, until we tackle those Energy Crises and the structural problems. So i think in all of those areas we have initiatives that we will be bringing to the summit, ways to tackle pragmatic problems that frankly are not based on ideology and that were willing to engage on with every country in the hemisphere, every country in the hemisphere. Any country that wants to partner with us. Because they are in all of our interests. Thats the way the partnership should be based, on mutual interest. Because thats the way most countries should structure their foreign policy, not on ideology but on mutual interest because thats what makes them durable. So let me stop there. I think its going to be a very good summit of the americas, and i look forward to the conversation. Thank you very much. [applause] harold i want to start off by thank you for joining us here another brookings. Its wonderful to have an opportunity to talk about a the state of interamerican relations suspicion as we look forward to the summit and events beyond the summit and i think you will find a large number of friends in the audience. I see people with great experience in the summit talks including max and others. Roberta another godfather of summits. Harold and alex is here. I think you can expect some very informed questions on the audience but we will start at first with just the conversation among us for going to the audience comes something that richard and i thought would be important to talk about absolute for. And i think one of the things is i think i agree with you that if we think back to cartagena there was friction around a number of issues, president obama received it is a on issues related to counternarcotics, cuba, immigration policy. The administration has taken initiatives in these areas, and that sort of cleared the deck in many ways of the kinds of things that were sources of friction in the past. But now as we look forward to the summit that is coming up on are there some flashpoints or problem areas that you see like the come is an issue for the present next week . Roberta i think there always are individual issues. I dont know that i see them as really broadly based. There are always a concern that we are not paying enough attention, that there are, you know, so many crises elsewhere that we really should pay more attention to this part of the world. There are, i know that there are concerns over the actions that were taken on venezuela and the sanctions. I do think those have been explained pretty well, and i think folks understand that they were the result of language that is always used. They are not a prelude to invasion, we have no desire to overthrow a government. But on the whole, i dont see the large sort of systemic issues. If you look, for example, at counternarcotics, i believe that the administrations message on taking a public healthbased approach at home has been much, much better understood in the three years since cartagena and had been going into it. And if you look around the hemisphere at the experiments taking place, whether its in uruguay or elsewhere coming to look to the United States, clearly we are all wrestling with the same issue of what works. I dont see the big systemic issue. Were focused on getting tpp done, but even those who dont support a particular Free Trade Agreement are looking for ways to deepen engagement on trade. So i dont know that i see, some in the audience may raise issues with me that i am not outlining, but i do see that we still need we still have a lot of work to do. We have a new secretarygeneral at the o. A. S. We will be hopefully working on revitalization of that architecture and organization but i dont see as many big complaints, i guess. Harold one issue you did raise was the issue of venezuela and the issue of the target sanctions against seven government officials and the reaction from venezuela and in mr. On this issue. Can you talk about what consideration was given for the timing of that decision, and was there discussion about what can issues for the president and panama next week . Roberta i think wasnt of the things you have to remember is that that legislation in congress have been pending for two years. And it had been working its way through the house and passed in the house and working its way through the senate for a very long time. When i know it made its way to the president s desk we have been working since the Mission Began around the time of the discussions were held. So from last march. So there was a pretty long period of our believing deeply that we should let the south american countries make that effort of trying to get things moving in venezuela. There is a dialogue held between the opposition and the government. We really did believe strongly that it was important to let that play out, but we found it difficult to continue to argue that there was a process in place when there were no talks going on, and for quite a few months did not have a Mission Going back and forth. So it was difficult to see where they would be a process that was engaging from externally, nor was there process and drilling in venezuela and there was quite a bit that was, that looked like it was not moving in the right direction, additional detentions and so forth, no releases to speak of. There were one or two because people were not well, et cetera, but not major releases. Concerns to be honest for the upcoming election and whether the structure for that election was going to be adequate to have a really free and fair election. I think the hope was that we needed to move ahead to send a message. These were very, very targeted with not a lot of people at all, and they were people we felt very strongly we could not allow access to our Banking System. Obviously these actions had been taken previously, but there was a desire not to have this be as much of an issue in the summit and, therefore, to do it before. Clearly the language that is in the standard executive order was considerably more neuralgic that than i think some people realized, but i think it was also whipped into a bit of a frenzy by venezuela leadership. And i was, i will confess, disappointed that there were not more who defended the fact that clearly this was not intended to hurt the venezuelan people or the venezuelan government even as a whole and did not more clearly explain or elucidate we see a did for them, in advance, because we did talk to governments in advance of the sanctions, that this was really very, very narrowly targeted. Harold thanks. I have some more questions but i think richard wants to jump in here. Richard thanks very much. Roberta, thanks very much for your kind words. I really appreciate it. And congratulations to you on your leadership. And as harold said, for previous and a much improved position going into this summit than we were just three years ago in cartagena with the president was very must isolate on issues of issues. I especially congratulate you on orchestrating the timing of the Iranian Nuclear court, because between the Iranian Nuclear accord and moving forward on cuba, the president will ride into panama in a very enhanced position to he will be the net is, as a man of dialogue. I think youll be very hard for anyone at the summit to really take him on with those accolades on his shoulders. So well done, roberta. [applause] so, cuba. What can you tell us about a possible interaction between president obama and president castro in cuba, and panama . And can you tell us anything about what secretary kerry might do in terms of interacting with his counterparts from cuba or other delegations. There there be a photo op . Will it be handshakes . With there be smiles . Possibly bilateral meetings . Can you tell us anything about that . And on the ceo summit agenda there is a line item which says speech on trade and Investment Opportunities in cuba. Speaker to be announced. Who might be giving that address . Roberta i think on the last question, it is probably best to ask luis since they are helping to set up or are running the summit. But i think, you know, someone from a large island in the caribbean would be a good person to give that statement. I think on the question of the interactions, clearly, clearly president obama knew when he made the decision to go to the summit and he knew that cuba had been invited to the summit, post december 11, december 17, that there would be an interaction at the summit that the leaders are together a lot of the time. And so there will be an interaction with raul castro. None of the president s meetings are scheduled other than his bilateral with president maduro as the host so i dont know exactly what kind of an interaction that will be. But they have spoken on the phone as he had said publicly on the 17th when you made the announcement, theres been a lot of interaction since then at a lower level. Secretary kerry has spoken with his counterpart, with mr. Rodriguez, so i expect that there will be contacts in panama. And its useful obviously to be able to have that contact and move things along so that we can get things done and open embassies and move ahead with this relationship. Richard good. I myself can imagine raul castro addressing the 700 assembled Corporate Executives around the western hemisphere and the same to them, please please not return and invest and trade with cuba, and that would be quite a moment in the interamerican relations. Well see if that happens. Laden with irony of course. Also in cuba there is a lot of speculation that cuba is actually acting as a moderating influence on the countries in order to keep, the contentious issues of venezuela from dominating the agenda. Rather than cuba wants to keep the spotlight on the u. S. Cuba approach it would appear, roberta, that the u. S. Can get along better perhaps with marksist states in the hemisphere than populous states in hemisphere. Can you tell us anything about what role cuba might be playing behind the scenes in latin america in order to make the summit actually overall a success . Roberta one of the things that i think is interesting is i dont know exactly what role cuba may be playing with venezuela or other countries like alba leadership. But i will say, we did see this fall at the u. N. General assembly a notable shift in cubas language. There was still an antiembargo resolution at the u. N. This fall as there has been for years, but there was a shift in language and those of us who watched cuba for a long time are attuned to shifts in language. It was less personal, less of an attack, including on our representative who was speaking that day. And, obviously, on december 17 you heard a pretty remarkable statement from president castro about president obama and the steps that they were both taking on that day. What you see in the rhetoric of many of the alba leaders is very personal, its very ad hominem. Its really of the sort that makes it very difficult to try and move ahead. We often are admonished that its just words, that we are a big country and we need to rise above that, and it is just words and we do all the time rise above that sort of thing. But words also matter, and words matter to populations and words matter to citizen and words matter in foreign policy. And so in foreign relations, and so when you say that things may be easier with marxist governments than with pop list ones, i wouldnt say that is the rule, but i would say that the tone that leaders set is important. And right now the tone that certain leaders are setting in those more populist countries is one of demonizing the United States as the source of their problems. In particular in venezuela, when we are not the source of the problem. And so that does make it harder for us to move forward pragmatically and nonideologically. Our goal in venezuela is not to overthrow this government. Our goal in venezuela is to create more political space as i think all the countries in this hemisphere have agreed to except cuba in the interAmerican Democratic charter. And so we have had a conversation with cuba quite honestly that has not been as, it has not been as ad hominem or as negative now, that said, it has acknowledged and been forthright where we profoundly disagree on human rights and universal rights, but weve tried really hard to tone down the level of those personal attacks. And that makes a difference in the ability to get other things done and hopefully makes a difference in our ability even to get some things done in that area. Richard raul castros remarks which were critical of u. S. Sanctions against venezuela, he was very careful not to directly criticize president obama but rather buffered decisions made by some of his aides, roberta. [laughter] last question before we go to the audience. May be gone [inaudible] let me just ask you about brazil then. So brazil i think its fair to say the big country of course in south america has never really liked the summit of the americas. We will remember some of our efforts to get the brazilians to be cooperative back in 1994 because they view the summit as an instrument of u. S. Influence which in my some way reduce their influence. Today i think its there to say that brazil appears somewhat aloof from hemispheric affairs. Preoccupied with their own domestic troubles. Nevertheless, on which summit issues that you outlined does the u. S. Look to brazil to play a helpful role . Roberta i think it is a great question, richard. Because i think brazil come and engagement with brazil is a really important thing in 2015 for us bilaterally but also for the region. I would note, for example, that brazil has not had an ambassador at the oas for a couple of years now