Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Minister, for appearing before us.
I want to congratulate you and the government on the western hemisphere initiative. It's so important. We had Mr. Latulippe visit with us--I think I mentioned that to you too--and talk about his vision of training members of Parliament so we can become ambassadors as well to do our small part to export this great democracy. Oftentimes we forget the history of Latin America and how that history has shaped much of the political environment that we see there today.
The thing that excites me about our western hemisphere initiative is that we're engaging now. You mentioned that you've been back there twice. When I think back to the years of Ortega in Nicaragua, he's back in power, but there seems to be a shift. If I interpret this correctly, it appears that there is the group that is polarizing around Chavez and then the group that wants freedom and democracy, wants free trade.
Can you tell this committee about the importance of free trade and what that does to poor countries like Honduras? On the one hand, we can engage them, encourage them to hopefully move forward to a democratic society; and on the other hand, we can help them and lift them up as well. So can you tell us about the importance of free trade to those countries, not necessarily ours, but to those countries?