SECRETARY BLINKEN: Good afternoon. It is a real pleasure to have Foreign Minister Allamand here. Andres and I have had the opportunity to speak, but now we have the opportunity to spend some time together face-to-face with our teams. And for the United States and for me, this is especially welcome because Chile is such an important partner for the United States.
We are working together across virtually all of the major issues of our time that are having a real impact on the lives of our citizens: of course, COVID-19, where Chile has done, I think, remarkable work; climate change, where Chile has been a leader; and of course, our shared commitment to democracy and human rights in our region and beyond. So there’s a lot to talk about, a strong agenda that we have, and I am very, very pleased to have you here.
FOREIGN MINISTER ALLAMAND: Thank you. I want to thank you very much. I want to thank Secretary Blinken for this opportunity to strengthen the very deep, profound, and complete bilateral relations between Chile and the U.S. As he said, we have very strong and shared commitments towards democracy, human rights. For instance, all the issues facing how to tackle climate change, that is an issue we share with the administration.
And of course, it’s also a great opportunity to take a look at the state of democracy and human rights in the region, see together how we’re going to all be able to work in cooperation in terms of the recovery, the economic recovery post-COVID-19. That, of course, is something very, very important.
And I will have the opportunity, of course, to show Secretary Blinken some of the advances that Chile is doing, for instance, in a very important field as green hydrogen. So we have a fantastic opportunity to have this conversation.
SECRETARY BLINKEN: Thank you all very much.
