WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Bob Menendez (D-N.J.), Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, today issued the below statement following Secretary of State Antony Blinken and U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai’s announcement of the launch of the Americas Partnership for Economic Prosperity (APEP), a multilateral framework among 12 Western Hemisphere countries that bolsters both U.S. competitiveness and regional resilience:
“I am pleased to see that the Biden administration is taking concrete steps to reassert the United States’ economic leadership in our hemisphere through the launch of the Americas Partnership for Economic Prosperity. In the face of China’s increasingly aggressive efforts to grow its influence in the Western Hemisphere, our collaboration with like-minded democracies to strengthen resiliency and promote good governance has never been more critical.
“I will say it again: we must stop taking our own hemisphere for granted. Our ability to counter Beijing’s predatory economic practices is being tested, and we must meet this challenge head-on. I am glad to see the State Department play a leading role in the Americas Partnership and look forward to working with the Biden administration to ensure that the APEP meaningfully deepens the United States’ regional economic partnerships to advance the interests and values of Americans for generations to come.”
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