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10:45-12 Noon Salon E
The panel will provide an update on the current status of U.S. trade relations within the hemisphere and what progress is expected in furthering hemispheric trade and economic integration in the years ahead.
Office of the US Trade Representative
Peter Thurlow, Deputy Director, International Economic Relations & Summit Division, Foreign Affairs Canada, moderator
Claude Carrière
Minister
(Economics) and Deputy Head of Mission
Canadian Embassy
Claude Carrière is the Minister (Economic) and Deputy Head of Mission for the Canadian Embassy in Washington DC. Prior to this, he was the Associate Assistant Deputy Minister, Trade, Economic and Environmental Policy Branch, where he was responsible for Regional Trade Policy, including the Chief Negotiator for the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) and other bilateral negotiations. Following the decision of December'03 to create the Department of International Trade, he was responsible for the negotiations with the Department of Foreign Affairs to separate the two entities. From September 1999 to December 2003, he was Director General, General Trade Policy - DFAIT, where he was responsible for Market Acess for Goods, Trade Remedies, Technical Barriers to Trade and Regional Trade Policy, Coordinator for the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and Chief Negotiator for the FTAA and other Bilateral Trade Negotiations.
He received a Master Degree in Economics from Ottawa University in 1980
Andrés
Velasco
Economist
LatinSource
Professor of International
Finance and Development
Harvard University
Andrés Velasco serves as LatinSource's economist in Chile. He is also Sumitomo-FASID Professor of International Finance and Development at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government.
From 1990-1992, Dr. Velasco held the positions of Chief of Staff to Chile's Finance Minister and of Director of International Finance at that Ministry. In 1995, he was appointed Chief Economist and Deputy Lead Negotiator in Chile's NAFTA accession team. He has been an advisor to the governments of Ecuador and El Salvador and to the Central Bank of Chile. Dr Velasco was also a consultant to the World Bank , the International Monetary Fund , the Inter-American Development Bank, the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America , and the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta .
Dr. Velasco has published widely in the areas of international, political and developmental economics. His recent research examines the causes of financial crises in emerging markets and identifies policies that can avert such crises. He is affiliated with the National Bureau of Economic Research in Cambridge and the Center for Applied Economics at the University of Chile . In 1995, TIME Magazine chose Dr. Velasco as one of “The One Hundred Leaders for the Next Millennium”.
Dr. Velasco holds a PhD in Economics from Columbia University and M.A. and B.A. degrees from Yale University . From 1994-1995, he was a Post-Doctoral Fellow in Political Economics at Harvard and M.I.T. Before joining the Kennedy School in 2000, he taught economics and directed the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies at New York University .
Regina Vargo, Assistant
USTR for the Americas, Office of the U.S. Trade Representative
Regina K. Vargo is a veteran trade policy expert with extensive experience in the Western Hemisphere region. She joined USTR in June 2001 after spending nearly 30 years with the Commerce Department, serving in a number of high-level positions specializing in trade with countries in the Western Hemisphere.
Mrs. Vargo manages USTR's efforts to liberalize and integrate trade in the Americas. She provides direction to the ongoing negotiations in the Free Trade Area of the Americas, and was the U.S. Chief Negotiator for the recently concluded CAFTA talks with the five countries of Central America (Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua) as well as the U.S.-Chile Free Trade Agreement, which was implemented in January 2004. Ms. Vargo is currently leading negotiations to integrate the Dominican Republic into the CAFTA, and will begin negotiations in the second quarter of 2005 with Panama and countries in the Andean region. She is also responsible for overseeing implementation of the North American Free Trade Agreement.
Ms. Vargo worked on several of these initiatives as the Deputy Assistant Secretary for the Western Hemisphere while at the Department of Commerce. Prior to that, she directed Commerce's support for the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and played a key role in promoting the agreement. During her service at the Commerce Department, she twice earned the agency's highest award - the Gold Medal - for work on the NAFTA negotiations and an "Export Mexico" program.
Mrs. Vargo is dedicated to the ongoing work at USTR of opening markets and promoting the benefits for trade for all participating countries. "Through trade, we are promoting democracy and prosperity," she says.
A graduate of Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service, Mrs. Vargo is married with two children.
