Shannon Says Pres. Bush's Trip to Latin America Was Important

By Latin America Advisor
March 20, 2007

Event: A Conversation with Tom Shannon, Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs, on President Bush's Visit to Latin America
Location: Doubletree Hotel, Terrace Ballroom

The top US diplomat for Latin America, Thomas Shannon, said Tuesday that President George W. Bush's March 8-14 visit to Latin America was "important and incredibly useful."

"This trip was especially important because it comes after the year of 2006, which from our point of view was kind of the year of elections," Shannon said at a meeting hosted by the Inter-American Dialogue.

"Half of the democracies in the Hemisphere had some kind of major election. And because of that, because of the sensitivity of the elections, we had to be careful about our travel schedule in 2006," he said, explaining that Bush traveled to the region just once last year for an annual conference on security and prosperity in Cancun, Mexico.

This year's conference is scheduled to take place in Ottawa in August. (http://www.spp.gov)

Shannon acknowledged that the US has been distracted from Latin America by other concerns, such as the Middle East. "It's evident that a lot of other people have forgotten about the region," he explained.