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11/10/2022 09:08 AM EST
Office of the Spokesperson
Mexico City, Mexico
Universidad La Salle
Deputy Secretary Sherman: Buenas tardes! It’s wonderful to be here with all of you today.
I want to begin by thanking La Salle’s Maestro Francisco Flores Gamio for hosting me today, and Jose Luis Cardenas and Ana Maria Coronado for that very warm welcome. It’s really an honor to be here with all the students, and we let a few of the faculty in too. As well as to those of you who are tuning in online.
You may not know this about me, but before I became the U.S. Deputy Secretary of State, I was a profesora, teaching at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government in Boston, and I absolutely loved it.
So whenever I’m back on a university campus, it takes me right back to the classroom. And like any good profesora, I’m going to give you some tarea — homework. Just a little bit. I want all of you, especially the young women among you, to start thinking about what questions you want to ask me.
Now I say especially young women because often when I’m with audiences the women are slow to raise their hands. Just do what the guys do. They have no idea what they’re going to ask, but they raise their hands because they think by the time I call on them they’ll have something to say, and they’ll do it with enough confidence that I’ll think it’s very smart. So just do that. It’s easy. I’ll walk you through it. You don’t have to have the perfect question, just raise your hand.
Most of all, I want to hear from all of you — women and men — what’s on your minds today. Because, quite frankly, with my silver hair and my bad back — that’s why this chair is there, in cast I need sit on it — I’m the past. You are the future. You all are the future. And I want this to be a conversation about your hopes, your ideas, what you’re thinking about, what you hope to see.
Next month, as we heard from Director Cardenas, the United States and Mexico will celebrate 200 years of diplomatic relations. On December 12, 1822, the day the President of the
United States received Mexico’s first ambassador, the United States had diplomatic relations with only about a dozen countries. Since then, that number has increased to approximately 190 countries all over the world. But of all those relationships, there is no country where the United States has stronger people-to-people ties than with Mexico.
Almost 40 million U.S. citizens have Mexican heritage — that’s more than 10 percent of our entire population. And 1.6 million U.S. citizens live in Mexico — the most anywhere in the world. These numbers are remarkable. We work together, we build communities together, we earn our livelihoods together, often on both sides of a shared border. And these bonds between our people are the foundation of the incredibly strong partnership between our countries.
Given our deep cultural, economic, historic, and familial ties, it makes perfect sense that our countries have a wide-ranging partnership rooted in our democratic values and commitment to the rules-based international order.
Now, as the international relations students in the audience know well, the world has started changing pretty rapidly. We’re in the early years of what the President of the United States and Secretary Blinken have called the decisive decade, one in which competition is underway to shape the future. As democracies, the United States and Mexico share a positive vision for that future — one that is free, open, secure, and prosperous. One that respects human rights and provides economic opportunity on a level playing field. That doesn’t mean we’re perfect, quite far from it. But it does mean we talk openly about our challenges and strive to live up to our ideals.
At the same time, it’s clear that not every country shares that vision. The People’s Republic of China has demonstrated a willingness to distort markets and hurt workers through intellectual property theft and forced labor. Russia’s illegal war of aggression against Ukraine shows what can happen when countries disregard rules and norms, including the UN Charter. Tragic loss of life, gross human rights violations, atrocities, war crimes, and economic disruption that affects the entire world. Food insecurity, energy insecurity, inflation. And all countries are watching closely. Because what is happening in Europe could happen anywhere if it goes unchallenged.
We all want better relations with every country. But we also need to be clear-eyed about what the future might bring. And that means sometimes we need to compete to defend our values, by pushing back against disinformation and economic coercion, and by standing up for human rights, social inclusion, and digital freedom as pillars of our shared vision.