Assuming the U.S. government will be operational past the March 18 funding deadline, President Obama will make his first trip to Central and South America from March 19-23. Obama had previously visited Mexico before heading to the Caribbean in April 2009, where he represented the United States at the Summit of the Americas held in Port-of-Spain, Trinidad and Tobago.
President Obama will begin his Latin America tour in Brazil, where he will visit Brasília on March 19 and hold bilateral talks with his counterpart, President Dilma Rousseff, who was inaugurated on January 1. The central discussion points are expected to be infrastructure financing and energy cooperation, with energy an especially critical area for sustaining Brazil’s economic boom and future development. Obama will continue to Rio de Janeiro the following day, where he is expected to hold a CEO roundtable and visit select sites with his family.
Obama will arrive in Santiago, Chile on the afternoon of March 21 and be greeted by Chilean President Sebastián Piñera. The two leaders will have a working meeting and sign a joint declaration, followed later that evening by a state dinner at the Palacio de la Moneda. Piñera and Obama will discuss innovation and the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) negotiations, the latest round of which concluded last month in Chile. President Piñera has expressed a desire to have the negotiating countries (Australia, Malaysia, Peru, United States, and Vietnam) join the existing TPP signatories (Brunei, Chile, New Zealand, and Singapore) before the next Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Honolulu, Hawaii, in November 2011.
On the morning of March 22, President Obama will deliver a speech to all Latin Americans from Santiago. The specific location is still being finalized; the Natural History Museum is a likely venue with the National History Museum and the UN Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) headquarters as alternative choices.
After his speech, Obama will fly to El Salvador for his final stop. He will be the fourth U.S. president to visit the Central American country while holding office, after Lyndon Johnson, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. Obama will meet with his El Salvadoran counterpart, Mauricio Funes, and discuss a range of bilateral issues including U.S. immigration policy and the recently-announced $200 million pledge from the State Department to renew Central America Regional Security Initiative (CARSI) funding. The two heads of state will also discuss the success of CAFTA-DR. El Salvador was the first Central American signatory. The United States and El Salvador celebrated five years of free trade relations on March 1, 2011.
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