Reott turned the brand new U.S consul basic in Tijuana in August. He’s a profession member of the Senior International Service with 20 years’ expertise within the Division of State. He beforehand served as minister counselor for financial affairs on the U.S. Embassy in Mexico Metropolis. He lives in Tijuana.
Because the just lately appointed U.S. consul basic in Tijuana, I come to work every day with a way of optimism in regards to the power of the U.S.-Mexico bilateral relationship and for the way forward for the Cali-Baja area. From the best ranges of our governments agreeing to broaden cooperation on safety and economics to native initiatives to deal with transboundary wastewater to robotics applications connecting our nations’ schoolkids, day by day we’re reworking and deepening our partnership with Mexico.
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In my 20 years within the International Service, I’ve served all over the world — in Washington, D.C., Mexico, Spain, Belgium, Afghanistan, Colombia and India. Every holds a particular place in my coronary heart, however Mexico is the one one the place I’ve served a number of postings.
I’ve been drawn again to Mexico thrice by the significance of the work, the fantastic thing about the nation and the heat of the folks. As consul basic in Tijuana, I’m honored to characterize the USA in Baja California and Baja California Sur.
With a shared 2,000-mile border and at the least 35 million U.S. residents with household ties to Mexico, we’re really two nations with one future. I proceed a protracted line of U.S. illustration in Baja California, the place we now have maintained a diplomatic presence since 1886, when Francis Andonargui was appointed because the consular agent within the port of Ensenada. Andonargui and his successors dispatched communiques about shipwrecks off the Mexican coast and supplied consular help to Individuals. 100 and thirty-five years later, 500,000 Individuals go to, work or dwell within the Baja Peninsula. Aiding our fellow residents stays on the core of my staff’s mission.
Few binational relationships are as consequential as that between the USA and Mexico, and, up to now few months, President Joe Biden and President Andrés Manuel López Obrador have opened a brand new period in financial and safety cooperation. In recognition of our broad strategic financial and industrial relationship, we relaunched the U.S.-Mexico High-Level Economic Dialogue in early September. Mexico is our largest buying and selling companion in items, together with as a high marketplace for U.S. agriculture exports. This system will foster financial growth and progress, promote job creation, improve world competitiveness, and cut back poverty and inequality.
Guided by shared duty and pushed by a mutual nationwide safety curiosity to cease transnational felony organizations from smuggling the illicit medication and weapons that threaten the well being and security of residents on either side of the border, the USA and Mexico adopted the Bicentennial Framework for Security, Public Health and Safe Communities in the course of the U.S.-Mexico Excessive-Degree Safety Dialogue on Oct. 8. These initiatives show our nations’ shared dedication to remodeling our cooperation to ship a extra secure and affluent future.
Along with implementing these high-level financial and safety initiatives, the U.S. consulate staff and I collaborate with our U.S. authorities colleagues, Mexican authorities counterparts and native stakeholders to deal with key priorities in our area, amongst them transboundary water, border infrastructure and well being challenges. I used to be happy to just lately preside over a donation of $60,000 of COVID-related medical gear to the Basic Hospitals in Tijuana, Ensenada and Mexicali. In September, we put in a brand new air high quality monitor on the U.S. consulate, whose information will enhance our understanding of air high quality within the Cali-Baja area and allow U.S. and Mexican leaders to higher tackle the air air pollution that impacts households within the area.
The U.S. ambassador to Mexico, Ken Salazar, has known as this a “transformative second” within the dynamic U.S.-Mexico relationship. Addressing our intertwined safety, cultural, financial and environmental challenges requires dialogue and cooperation throughout all sectors of society.
Nowhere is that more true than right here within the Cali-Baja area, the U.S.-Mexico border’s most populous and interconnected space. With the partnership of native consultants, neighborhood leaders and authorities officers, we will seize the alternatives to enhance the long-term well being and competitiveness of our binational neighborhood.
Optimism is the inspiration for progress, and I’m very optimistic about our shared future.
