About 20 years ago, the North American Free Trade Agreement was passed. America's leadership in promoting free trade policies has been a vital part of American prosperity. The level of competition created by free trade policies has been the impetus for remarkable innovation. While leading to the opening of exciting new markets around the world, at home this has allowed the American people to access more varied goods and services a lower prices, while creating jobs, a practical and positive effect for free trade that benefits every American. Today's hearing on NAFTA will look more broadly at...

President Obama's political spin team and the White House are calling this a humanitarian situation. It is a crisis. Not only have relevant agencies been overwhelmed, but our national security has been put at risk as the border security resources have been diverted to deal with the crisis. Virtually all of the 140 volunteers from the Customs and Border Patrol that are at this facility are volunteers who have basically left the border to take care of these children. In the last 8 months, over 47,000 unaccompanied minors have been apprehended at our border. In the first part of this fiscal...

When Secretary of State John Kerry testified before the full Foreign Affairs Committee on the State Department's Fiscal Year 2015 budget he failed to even mention the Western Hemisphere, our hemisphere, in his opening remarks. The Obama administration needs to come up with a coherent strategy for the region, one that considers U.S. national security and commercial interests, and one that celebrates and supports the aspirations of individuals seeking liberty and the respect of democratic principles. The Secretary's failure to even mention the Western Hemisphere is particularly disconcerting...

While our attention is often captivated by events in Asia, Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa, the Western Hemisphere is strategically important to U.S. interests. Crises and firefighting should not determine the level of a region's priority for the United States. The U.S. has drifted in many ways toward a policy of benign neglect of our neighbors in Latin America and the Caribbean. U.S. disengagement, evidenced by unsustained U.S. attention and tactical rather than strategic approaches in the region, has enabled other actors to step into the vacuum of leadership. With no ocean...

Following the Cold War, Russia began taking more of a pronounced interest in the region especially during the 2008 crisis in Georgia. When the U.S. responded to Russia's aggression in Georgia by sending naval forces to the Black Sea, Russia deployed nuclear-capable bombers to the Caribbean and a four-ship naval flotilla to conduct military exercises with the Venezuelan navy and make port calls in Cuba and Nicaragua. Russia also stepped up its diplomatic outreach with a visit to the region from then-President Medvedev, and subsequent visits from the Presidents of Venezuela, Nicaragua, Bolivia...

Effective border management in Latin America and the Caribbean is vital to our economic prosperity and national security. Throughout the hemisphere, we are working with governments to eliminate trade barriers, integrate electricity grids and energy markets, connect national infrastructures, and cement commercial relationships. The trillion dollar trade relationship and over 3 million American jobs, supported by the United States' economic relationship with Canada and Mexico, demonstrate what is possible when governments collaborate actively. At the same time that we are using our border...

Democracy has collapsed in Nicaragua. While Nicaragua does not suffer the same problems with citizen security, gang wars, or migration to the United States as the Northern Triangle countries, Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, have experienced, it is the poorest Central American country and second poorest in the Western Hemisphere, only after Haiti. Under President Daniel Ortega's multiple terms as President, he has taken increasingly blatant steps to concentrate political power into a single party Frente Sandinista de Liberacion Nacional/Sandinista National Liberation Front] FSLN-ruled...

In the past, the U.S. supported energy initiatives in the Americas through investment and the exploration and production of traditional energy resources, providing regulatory and technical guidance, and under the Obama administration renewal energy projects. Energy is an important key to creating more jobs for the Americas and to helping our hemisphere achieve a better quality of life via electricity coverage, energy production, and benefitting from the resulting economic growth. South America is home to a vast wealth of natural resources, including nearly 20 percent of the world's proven...