Administration of Barack Obama, 2011 The President's News Conference With President Carlos Mauricio Funes Cartagena of El Salvador in San Salvador, El Salvador March 22, 2011 President Funes. Good afternoon and thank you so much for your presence. Thanks to all the friends of the press, both domestic and international. First of all, I would like to thank President Obama for his visit, and also to his family and his committee—his delegation that accompanied this morning. And on behalf of my wife Vanda and all the people of El Salvador, I really thank you, Mr. President, for the support that you have given to the people of El Salvador and to the process of transition and building of democracy that we're going through. It is a great honor to have your presence in El Salvador. So welcome once again, Mr. President, and I hope that you enjoy, the few hours that you're going to be here, the hospitality of our people. President Obama has asked me if this is the weather characteristic of this time of the year, and I was saying that, yes, and that it is a pity because if he had stayed a little bit longer we could have invited you to get to see the beaches of our country that are one of the best in the region. Dear friends of the press, this visit of President Obama is historical. This encounter is produced when our country is immersed in a process of deep changes that started with the political—[inaudible]—a transition that took place in a very orderly and peaceful manner that has meant a transcendental step forward for the consolidation of our democracy and of our institutions in the fight for transparency. Therefore, we are in face of a great opportunity for our political, economic, and social development, an opportunity that is historic in nature, to get—to do away with the obstacles that in the past did not allow us to advance as a unit towards a new model of development with social justice. Your visit, Mr. President, is circumscribed within this process as showmanship of your recognition of the advancements in our democracy and the efforts that we have carried out as a people to reach international consensus that will allow us to continue progressing together facing the great challenges, especially poverty and the commitment to get greater levels of citizen security. We coincided when we were talking with President Obama that this visit to the Latin America region is fundamental, and he was telling me some details of his meeting with President Dilma Rousseff of Brazil and the President of Chile. The truth, Mr. President, is that this is a fundamental visit, first of all because Latin America, after the democratization process that we've gone through the last two decades, is now a region in peace that enjoys the deserved fruits of this great struggle for human rights and the strengthening of our democracies. But also it is fundamental from point of view—the economic point of view because the majority of the Latin America countries are just overcoming this international crisis better than other countries in the world based on models against poverty and betting on their productive sectors and the hard-working people that they have. 1 We celebrate these circumstances that situate Latin America as a fundamental point within the international reference after this international crisis. And I think that the criteria with which you have based your visit to Latin America is a support to the path that my country has taken, to take Brazil and the United States as my points of reference. First, because Chile represents for us an example of democratic transition that was very successful of overcoming dictatorships and polarization. It is a country that has been able to cure its injuries to reach this institutional soundness that we admire so much. And Brazil has also shown in the 8 years of the Presidency of my friend, Lula, and now with the starting of the Presidency of Dilma, Brazil has demonstrated that the struggle against poverty is the greatest engine for growth, and that this model that strives to improve production is also our inspiration. So we celebrate being part of this visit, of this tour, and to be able to go more in depth in this friendship that we started on March 8 last year when I visited you in Washington. And allow me briefly before I give the floor to President Obama to synthesize from my perspective some of the topics that we developed in this bilateral agenda. First of all, as I said in private, now I say it in public in front of the friends of the press, I want to thank publicly the President of the United States for including our country in such important initiatives like the BRIDGE project and the Partnership for Growth. Both are very important processes for us. And in this sense, we have requested the President to dynamize this process so that these projects can become a reality as soon as possible. We already have a schedule that foresees the definition of great projects in June, with which we will start this partnership. I also want to thank the words of President Obama when he recognizes the importance of our population in the development of his country: the presence of more than 2 million of Salvadorans that work and live in the United States and the importance that this population has in the development of El Salvador through the remittances that they send year by year. Of course, migration was another key issue in our conversation. We coincided once again with President Obama on the need to have focus for development and joint responsibility in this sense. We also coincided that with regards to migration, the best strategy is the struggle against poverty and the creation of opportunities to have our people stay in their places of origin. Migration is a painful expression of a world that has not been able to establish accessible parameters of justice and inclusion. I have expressed to President Obama my pleasure when I heard in his speech at the Union—State [State of the Union Address]—the commitment of pushing an agreement of both parties, bipartisan agreement for comprehensive immigration reform and present it to the Congress of the United States. And finally, we also talked about security, and we did so in an extended meeting with the presence of officials of the Cabinet of President Obama, as well as ours. This has been a key issue in this meeting, and I have expressed to President Obama the willingness of my Government to continue with the efforts of Central American security. We said that narco-activity, such as an insecurity, is not an issue that is only a problem for El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua isolatedly, not even Colombia or Mexico alone. It's a 2 problem that attacks us as a region. And this is why we are building a regional strategy through the CARSI Initiative. Of course, I also insisted that this is an issue that should not only be approached through the persecution of the crime by our armies and police, but that we have to stress on prevention policies. And therefore, the best weapon to combat and reduce crime in the region is through the investment in social policies. And finally, I thanked President Obama, as I do it right now in public, for his decision to visit the tomb of Monsignor Arnulfo Romero and the kindness of his invitation to accompany him in this historical visit. As I have said, Monsignor is the spiritual guide of this nation, and the visit that you are going to carry out to the tomb of Monsignor implies for us a recognition of a leader, an international leader like President Obama, to the message of Oscar Arnulfo Romero and the universal validity of his message. Thank you once again for your stay in our country, and we thank you for the expression of kindness by your wife and your children in this visit to El Salvador. Thank you very much, Mr. President. President Obama. President Funes, thank you so much for your very generous words. It was a pleasure to welcome you and First Lady Pignato to the White House last year. I want to thank you today for welcoming me and my wife and our daughters to El Salvador. We are honored to be here. Yesterday in Santiago, Chile, I outlined how the United States is forging partnerships for progress with nations and peoples across Latin America. And there are few better examples of both the opportunities and challenges facing the Americas today than here in El Salvador. Fortunately for El Salvador, it enjoys the wise leadership of President Funes. And, Mr. President, I want to commend you for your courageous work to overcome old divisions in Salvadoran society and to show that progress comes through pragmatism and building consensus. You've articulated a vision of economic growth and social progress that is inclusive of all segments of Salvadoran society. And I want to make it clear today that the United States wants to be a partner with El Salvador in this process. We want El Salvador to be successful. Thanks to smart investments in education, rural development, and infrastructure, El Salvador has made gains in reducing poverty. And to build on this progress, El Salvador is one of the first four countries in the world in our Partnership for Growth, which is a key element of my administration's new approach to development.