Chairman of the House Western Hemisphere Subcommittee to Travel to Trinidad for 5th Hemispheric Summit

Washington, D.C.--Congressman Eliot L. Engel, the Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere, will lead a bipartisan delegation with eight of his colleagues to Trinidad and Tobago for the 5th Summit of the Americas on April 17th and 18th. Heads of State from 34 countries in the Americas will meet at this weekend’s Summit. Engel will be available to the press throughout the Summit at the phone numbers listed above.

In advance of the Summit, Chairman Engel issued the following statement:

“I look forward to traveling to Trinidad and Tobago for the 5th Summit of the Americas. I am particularly pleased that President Obama will be in Trinidad for the Summit. I believe that the goodwill generated by President Obama’s presence at the Summit will itself do a great deal to reinvigorate US-Latin American Relations.

“The Obama Administration is already off to a running start in the Americas. President Obama is in Mexico today, and has already held meetings with Presidents Calderon and Lula da Silva. Vice President Biden traveled to Chile and Costa Rica recently where he was able to meet with heads of state from throughout South and Central America. And, Secretary Clinton, who has already visited Mexico, is in Haiti and the Dominican Republic prior to this weekend’s Summit. The Obama Administration is quickly demonstrating to our friends in the Americas that they will be a priority once more.

“This weekend’s Summit must not be the high point of our relationship with Latin America and the Caribbean. Rather, it must represent a new beginning where the US shows real respect for our neighbors to the South and pays sustained attention to this important region. In fact, I think President Obama should bring Secretary Clinton’s ‘reset button’ to the Summit as a symbolic way of showing that we are ready for a change in how we deal with the region.”