Statements and Releases

Today, on Transgender Day of Remembrance, we mourn the transgender Americans whose lives were taken this year in horrific acts of violence. There should be no place for hate in America – and yet too many transgender Americans, including young people, are cruelly targeted and face harassment simply for being themselves. It’s wrong. My Administration has taken significant action to strengthen the rights and protect the safety of all Americans, including working across the federal government to combat violence against transgender Americans. Every American deserves to be treated with dignity and respect, and to live free from discrimination. Today, we recommit ourselves to building a country where everyone is afforded that promise.

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Our Administrations reaffirm the central and critical role that working people play in achieving a sustainable, democratic, equitable, and peaceful world. Everyone benefits when workers and their trade unions are empowered to fight for better conditions in the workplace, fairness in the economy, and democracy in our societies. Putting workers’ interests at the heart of our economic policies grows the middle class and builds a brighter future in line with the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the Sustainable Development Goals. 

Last year, the United States and Brazil launched the Partnership for Workers’ Rights to catalyze action at the highest levels to empower and uplift workers’ rights around the world. Today we welcome South Africa as a new partner in this endeavor.

In its first year, the Partnership for Workers’ Rights has helped keep workers safe from life-threatening heat stress, fought to combat forced labor, fostered inclusivity in the workplace, built worker power, endorsed principles for a just green transition, and promoted high-road investment that can deliver on the promise of decent work. As a result of the Partnership, workers and unions gained new training, tools, and resources to advance worker safety, shape policy development, and promote racial equality and justice.  

These successes serve as the basis for ongoing, future efforts designed to tangibly improve the lives of workers around the world. We affirm our commitment to promote equal employment opportunities and better working conditions for women as well as men. Next year we plan to strengthen our efforts to eliminate forced labor and remediate the harms it causes. We will fight for a world of work free from discrimination, harassment, and gender-based violence. And we will continue to strengthen workers’ collective voice in the clean energy transition by promoting social dialogue in clean energy investment, including through community benefit agreements, project labor agreements, sectoral bargaining, and partnerships with unions. We intend to further advance our efforts to educate and empower the next generation of union leaders to carry forward this work in the years to come. 

Labor leaders remain our steadfast partners in this effort. Their perspectives and recommendations will continue to guide our efforts under the Partnership to create durable, shared prosperity for workers, their families, and their communities. We thank Germany, Chile, and Spain for contributing to the Partnership’s work this year, and we call on other countries that share our vision to join us. Together, we will strive towards a future of decent work and labor rights for all.

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President Joe Biden met today with President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of Brazil on the margins of the G20 Summit in Rio de Janeiro to discuss the U.S.-Brazil strategic relationship, rooted in our strong support for democracy.  President Biden congratulated President Lula on Brazil’s G20 host year and reaffirmed the United States’ support for President Lula’s efforts to address hunger and poverty and their shared commitment to ensure no one is left behind.  As part of their joint effort to promote decent work, the leaders reviewed progress under the Partnership for Workers’ Rights, including empowering workers to participate in climate policy discussions and help ensure a just energy transition.  President Biden reiterated U.S. commitment to digital inclusion, announcing U.S. development financing to support the expansion of Brazil’s fiber optic network to serve an additional 1 million homes and 4,000 schools by 2027.
 
The two leaders underscored their commitment to democratic institutions and the rule of law, both at home and abroad.  In the Americas, they agreed to continue consulting on the situation in Venezuela and called for the democratic will of the Venezuelan people to be respected and for the end of political repression.  Noting the urgent security situation in Haiti, the two leaders commended Kenya for its leadership role in addressing the security situation in Haiti.  President Biden thanked President Lula for Brazil’s commitment to support the people of Haiti and underscored the need to transition the Multinational Security Support mission to a United Nations peacekeeping operation.  
 
As Brazil assumes the Presidency of COP30, both leaders underscored the need for urgent action to address the climate crisis. 
 
Thanking President Lula for the historic invitation to be the first sitting president to visit the Amazon, President Biden highlighted U.S. support for Brazil’s Amazon Fund and pledged U.S. support to stand up the Tropical Forests Forever Facility.  
 
Building on their commitment to addressing the climate crisis and seizing the opportunity to promote decent work in essential industries, the two leaders announced a new Brazil-U.S. Partnership for the Energy Transition.  The Partnership will accelerate clean energy deployment, expand energy and mineral supply chain development, and decarbonize the manufacturing and industrial sectors.  President Biden expressed his confidence in the durability of this partnership, which builds on longstanding bilateral cooperation, such as the U.S.-Brazil Energy Forum and the Strategic Minerals Dialogue.

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From day one of his Administration, President Biden pledged to restore U.S. leadership and strengthen our partnerships to make America more secure and prosperous. Taking office amid a devastating pandemic that had upended the global economy, President Biden recognized that we needed to work with partners to tackle big cross-border challenges.  

President Biden’s leadership at the G20 has demonstrated the dividends that U.S. engagement yields for America and the world.  Through the G20, the Biden-Harris Administration has delivered a landmark agreement to stop the race to the bottom in corporate taxation; launched a new fund to address pandemic threats; and helped unlock hundreds of billions of dollars of resources at the international financial institutions to advance development progress and tackle global challenges.

At the Rio Summit, President Biden continued this legacy of leadership by rallying his fellow leaders to unlock space for developing countries to invest in their futures, accelerate the global clean energy transition, tackle global health threats, and champion an inclusive digital transformation.  He also built on the United States’ longstanding leadership on food security by joining the Global Alliance Against Hunger and Poverty.

President Biden continued his push for peace and stability around the world.  He condemned Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine – which has exacerbated the crises facing developing countries – and affirmed the United States’ strong support for Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity and called on his fellow leaders to do the same.  President Biden also affirmed Israel’s right to defend itself while emphasizing that how it defends itself – even as Hamas cruelly hides among civilians – matters.  He highlighted U.S. humanitarian aid to Gaza and made clear that the United States is pushing for a ceasefire deal that ensures Israel’s security, brings the hostages home, and ends the suffering of Palestinians in Gaza.  President Biden asked his fellow leaders to increase pressure on Hamas to stop refusing this deal.

Driving sustainable growth and development in developing countries

President Biden has built his economic agenda around the United States investing at home and unlocking additional resources to support investments in developing countries around the world.  

Championing concessional finance from the World Bank for the poorest countries.  President Biden announced the U.S. intent for a substantial increase in the U.S. contribution to the International Development Association (IDA), the arm of the World Bank that supports the poorest and most vulnerable countries.  The Biden Administration intends to pledge $4 billion over three years to the ongoing IDA replenishment, subject to Congressional approval.  A better and bigger IDA is critical to unlocking space for developing countries to invest in their futures.  President Biden has heard loud and clear the calls from developing countries for more concessional financing and a strong IDA replenishment in December.  This pledge will sustain U.S. leadership as the largest historical donor to IDA and joins other countries that are stepping up to support IDA recipients with critical, sustainable investments in their development.  At the Rio Summit, President Biden called on existing donors to follow the U.S. example by increasing support and on new donors to start contributing.  

Equipping the multilateral development banks (MDBs) to address global challenges.  The Biden-Harris Administration has spearheaded a broad coalition to equip the MDBs to better address global challenges like climate change, pandemics, and fragility and conflict.  Over the last two years, this leadership has led to enormous strides in reforming the MDBs’ visions, incentives, and operations to make them more efficient and responsive to countries’ development needs.  Reforms already identified could boost lending capacity by up to nearly $360 billion over the next decade, giving the MDBs the resources they need to tackle global challenges with greater speed and scale.  At the Rio Summit, President Biden reiterated his request for Congress to approve funding to boost World Bank lending capacity by $36 billion, recognized the G20 members that have made their own contributions to this U.S.-led effort, and called on fellow leaders to match this with their own contributions.   

Unlocking space for developing countries to invest in sustainable growth and development.  High debt service burdens are preventing developing countries from making critical investments in their futures – many low-income countries spend more servicing their debt than on health, education, and social programs combined.  Building on the Nairobi-Washington Vision that he launched with President Ruto of Kenya in May 2024, President Biden called on the G20 to provide a pathway for sustainable growth for these countries that would bring together the international community to provide stepped-up support for countries facing constraints from debt servicing burdens, but whose debts are sustainable.  Under this plan, the IMF and MDBs would deliver enhanced support packages that incorporate ambitious reform and investment agendas; bilateral creditors would provide net positive financial flows to end free-riding; and MDBs and G20 countries would deploy their tools to unlock private financing.  As part of this plan, the U.S. government is employing its multilateral and bilateral tools to step up financing for vulnerable countries.  This includes finalizing the U.S. contribution of $21 billion to the IMF’s Poverty Reduction and Growth Trust.

Calling for faster debt relief for countries with unsustainable burdens.  President Biden pushed for making the debt restructuring process faster and more predictable to reduce the hardship on the people of indebted countries.  President Biden called on G20 countries to swiftly provide debt relief to countries who need it and advocated for accelerating the restructuring process, including by improving the G20 Common Framework.  

Furthering the global clean energy transition

After a historic visit to the Amazon that highlighted his legacy of spearheading the most significant domestic climate and conservation action in history and leading global efforts to tackle the climate crisis through a historic pledge to increase U.S. international climate finance to over $11 billion a year by 2024, President Biden rallied G20 leaders in Rio to raise their climate ambition and develop innovative solutions to support the clean energy transition.

Launching the Brazil-U.S. Partnership for the Energy Transition.  Presidents Biden and Lula announced a new partnership to elevate ongoing bilateral efforts in clean energy production, clean energy supply chain development, and green industrialization.  This partnership builds on longstanding efforts under the U.S.-Brazil Energy Forum and the Strategic Minerals Dialogue. This partnership will also help mobilize private sector investment in the energy transition through engagement under the Clean Energy Industry Dialogue and the recently signed cooperation framework agreement between the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation (DFC) and BNDES, the Brazilian Development Bank. 

Globalizing the U.S. clean energy industrial strategy.  The United States has demonstrated that investing in the energy transition is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to unlock clean growth, good jobs, high-standard investment, and energy security.  This vision is reflected in a number of bilateral clean energy industrial partnerships President Biden has established, including the new Brazil-U.S. Partnership for the Energy Transition, Roadmap For U.S.-India Initiative to Build Safe and Secure Global Clean Energy Supply Chains, and U.S.-Kenya Climate and Clean Energy Industrial Partnership.  These efforts are further cemented in the multilateral Clean Energy Finance Mission Statement released on the margins of the G20 under the leadership of the United Kingdom and Brazil to mobilize finance in emerging markets and developing economies (EMDEs) for green industrialization and building resilient and diverse clean energy supply chains. 

U.S. leadership in financing the global clean energy transition.  Alongside the Clean Energy Finance Mission Statement, the United States announced a major $325 million contribution to the Clean Technology Fund, a highly concessional fund designed to support the scaling and diversification of clean energy supply chains in eligible EMDEs.  The United States has also separately extended $2 billion in shareholder guarantees through the World Bank to catalyze India’s and Indonesia’s investments in the clean energy economy.

Reforming the multilateral climate funds.  After leading the effort to equip the MDBs to better address global challenges like climate change, the United States is working with others to reform the vertical climate and environmental funds as the next frontier in the evolution of the international financial architecture.  Building on an independent review of the funds launched by the G20 this year, G20 leaders encouraged the funds to work together to unlock their full potential and improve access, including through enhanced cooperation with the MDBs.  This call to action can pave the way for the funds to deliver finance at the speed and scale the climate crisis demands.

Strengthening the global health architecture

When he came into office, President Biden prioritized ending the COVID-19 pandemic and preparing for future pandemics.  At the Rio Summit, President Biden built on this legacy to continue tackling the threat of pandemics and delivering for global health.

Delivering for the Pandemic Fund.  President Biden led the G20 to establish the Pandemic Fund in 2022 to help developing countries build capacity to prepare, prevent, and respond to the next pandemic.  In its first two years, the Pandemic Fund has awarded $885 million in grants across 75 countries, including nearly $129 million for countries affected by the mpox public health emergency, and mobilized an additional $6 billion in co-financing and co-investment for project implementation, delivering support that is making America – and the world – safer from the next pandemic threat.  The United States is championing an ambitious $2 billion replenishment of the Pandemic Fund and leading the way by pledging up to $667 million by 2026, subject to Congressional approval.  At the Rio Summit, the United States led a G20 call for new and increased contributions to reach the funding goal.

Responding to the threat of mpox.  The United States galvanized the G20 to commit political and financial support to the mpox response and support the World Health Organization (WHO) and the World Bank in creating a global mpox response financing tracker to identify and address gaps.  The financing tracker, which will be launched soon, shows that countries have stepped up quickly, providing 90 percent of the resources needed to respond, including more than $540 million from the United States.  The United States has also pledged to provide more than one million mpox vaccine doses to the response.  Nearly 400,000 doses have already been allocated through WHO and Africa CDC’s Access and Allocation mechanism; the remaining doses will be allocated as guided by country requirements.  

Restoring immunization services to better than pre-pandemic levels.  In June, the United States pledged at least $1.58 billion over the next five years to Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, the first-ever five-year pledge and the largest-ever U.S. pledge.  In Rio, President Biden called on other countries to come forward with their own ambitious pledges in support of Gavi’s goal of vaccinating an additional 500 million children and saving at least 8 million lives.  In September 2024, DFC expanded its donor liquidity partnership with Gavi, building on support put in place during COVID-19.  The $1 billion Rapid Financing Facility will allow Gavi to access funds from donors making new pledges for pandemic response or routine immunization much faster. 

Ending HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria as public health threats by 2030.  The Biden-Harris Administration has invested more than $26 billion in the HIV/AIDS response.  Through the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), the Administration has supported more than 20 million people on lifesaving treatment and reached millions more with effective HIV prevention programs.  In 2022, President Biden led the largest ever replenishment for the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria (Global Fund), raising more than $15.7 billion in donor pledges, including a U.S. pledge of $6 billion over three years.  President Biden also sustained robust bilateral funding for the President’s Malaria Initiative, which provided more than $3 billion for malaria to support 30 countries who together account for around 90 percent of all malaria cases and deaths globally. 

Addressing the environmental determinants of health.  President Biden led G20 members to emphasize the importance of addressing One Health (human-animal-plant-environment) challenges such as antimicrobial resistance (AMR) and climate change.  On AMR, the Administration has invested $1 billion to prevent infections and detect and respond to AMR and has finalized policies aimed at preventing the rise of AMR due to crop pesticide use.  On climate and health, the Administration has included health as one of four key sectors for its PREPARE action plan. The over $3 billion invested through PREPARE supports resilient health systems while also supporting key life support systems such as food, water, and infrastructure.  At home, the Administration has launched a first-of-its kind National Heat Strategy and secured the commitment of more than 960 health care companies to address their emissions and climate resilience.  

Leading the fight against poverty and hunger

President Biden built on the United States’ longstanding leadership on global food security.

Accelerating progress on global food security.  In the face of a protracted global food security crisis, the Biden-Harris Administration has led the fight against global hunger.  Since 2021, the United States has committed more than $20 billion in funding in more than 47 countries to support emergency interventions and build more resilient and sustainable food systems to mitigate against future global food shocks.  In 2022, the Biden-Harris Administration rallied more than 100 countries to endorse the UN Roadmap for Global Food Security, affirming the importance of tackling global food insecurity as an economic and national security imperative.

Launching G20 action on hunger and poverty.  At the Rio Summit, President Biden joined G20 leaders to launch the Global Alliance Against Hunger and Poverty to provide sustained political momentum and facilitate better alignment of financial resources and knowledge-sharing in support of efforts with a proven track record of impact in accelerating the eradication of poverty.  As a member of the Alliance, the United States highlighted existing U.S.-led efforts to reduce malnutrition, increase women’s access to land tenure, and promote private sector investments in improved seed varieties globally.  President Biden also highlighted a number of domestic efforts to lift millions of people in the United States out of poverty through the Social Security program, nutrition assistance, refundable tax credits, and benefits for disabled Americans.

Combatting corruption to drive sustainable and equitable development.  Recognizing that corruption and weak governance impede the Sustainable Development Goals, the United States is working with partners to press for stronger action to prevent and counter corruption, including better enforcement by all G20 countries of foreign bribery laws and ensuring transparent, inclusive, and accountable public institutions.

Empowering workers

In September 2023, Presidents Biden and Lula launched the Partnership for Workers’ Rights, the first joint U.S.-Brazil initiative to advance the rights of working people around the world.  The Partnership has tangibly improved the lives of workers through new initiatives and over $20 million of programming supported by the United States that: 

Facilitated collaboration to prevent heat-related illnesses and promoted the use of mobile apps and other tools to help workers know when they are at risk of heat-related illnesses.   

Advanced collaborative efforts with businesses, governments, and unions to tackle the root causes of forced labor and promote forced labor remediation, including in the cattle, coffee, gold mining, charcoal production, and other industries and supply chains. 

Supported efforts to strengthen worker engagement in climate policy and promoted unionization and collective bargaining in the manufacturing and agriculture sectors.  

Supporting an inclusive and equitable digital future for all

Recognizing the potential of the digital transformation to empower people globally, President Biden advocated for an inclusive and equitable digital future for all in Rio.  

Leveraging artificial intelligence (AI) for sustainable development and worker empowerment.  President Biden joined other G20 Leaders in advocating to leverage the potential of AI to help solve global challenges, enable worker well-being, and ensure AI technologies are developed and used responsibly.  The United States has demonstrated its commitment to achieving this goal by delivering on President Biden’s Executive Order on AI, particularly the AI in Global Development Playbook and the Global AI Research Agenda. 

Making progress on universal and meaningful connectivity.  President Biden proudly joined other G20 leaders in recognizing universal and meaningful connectivity as key to achieving digital inclusion.  To help achieve this, DFC has approved a combined $630 million in financing for the Brazilian digital infrastructure company V.tal Rede Neutra De Telecomunicacoes S.A. (V.tal) to support the expansion of its fiber optic network across Brazil.  DFC’s financing will enable more than 1 million homes and 4,000 schools to be connected to the Internet by 2027.

Investing through the Women in the Digital Economy Initiative.  G20 leaders reaffirmed the historic commitment from the 2023 G20 Leaders’ Summit to halve the digital gender gap by 2030.  In furtherance of this commitment, the United States announced the first round of global funding awards through the Women in the Digital Economy Initiative’s aligned fund.  Ten organizations, spanning eight countries across East Africa, West Africa, South Asia, and Latin America, have been selected for their innovative solutions and impact in tackling the gender digital divide.  These organizations will address barriers to equitable digital inclusion, such as access to affordable devices and online experiences; availability of relevant products and tools; digital literacy and skills; safety and security; and data and insights.

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Establishing a Climate-Forward Clean Energy Industrial Partnership

Brazil and the United States share the goal of creating more competitive, clean, fair, and resilient economies by promoting the clean energy transition in a way that fosters  economic growth and the generation of high-quality jobs, while reducing emissions and keeping our 1.5°C goals within reach, consistent with the Paris Agreement. Along with other domestic priorities, these objectives align with the following public policy agendas in both countries:

• Brazil has recently launched its policy of development called Nova Indústria that seeks to strengthen Brazil’s industrial capacity and supply chains, including in bioeconomy decarbonization and energy security. Brazil also has, among other policies, the Ecological Transformation Program, the Fuels of the Future Program, the National Plan for Energy Transitions (PLANTE), and the National Hydrogen Program (PNH2).

• The United States is implementing ambitious pieces of legislation, including the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and the Inflation Reduction Act, which contain significant incentives to diversify clean energy supply chains and accelerate the growth of both clean power generation and clean energy technology manufacturing, including clean hydrogen and sustainable aviation fuel.

Brazil and the United States have immense potential to lead the global energy transition on some of its most promising fronts. This new partnership presents a strategic opportunity to strengthen bilateral cooperation on clean industrial development, leveraging complementarities across both our public and private sectors. The two sides announce their intent, in particular, to focus coordination across three pillars:

1. Clean energy production and deployment: accelerate and expand clean energy production and deployment, particularly to harness Brazil and the United States’ vast clean and renewable resources, including wind, solar, hydropower, and potentially, other biocapacity resources. This would accelerate efforts to decarbonize the power, transportation, and industrial sectors.

2. Clean energy technology supply chain development: increase cooperation on innovation, workforce training, and project development for clean technologies, including efforts to manufacture solar and wind components, long-duration storage batteries, and zero and low-emission vehicles and components; produce clean hydrogen; increase production, processing, and recycling of critical minerals; and scale carbon management technologies.

3. Green industrialization: advance efforts to decarbonize manufacturing and industrial sectors writ large to attract investments from global companies, and drive closer coordination across Brazilian and U.S. private sector partners to achieve net-zero emissions in their supply chains, as well as position our companies to effectively compete in a world where global trade will increasingly account for embedded emissions. 

Brazil and the United States, through a leader-level partnership around these three priorities, intend to align incentives and mobilize public, private, and multilateral development bank (MDB) financing to generate a myriad of shared benefits, such as creating local clean energy jobs that empower communities and workers; integrating and expanding clean energy supply chains; advancing clean energy technological development; and stimulating new investments, including in the areas of climate resilience and combatting deforestation. The partnership intends to serve as a framework to elevate and coordinate the strong existing collaboration between Brazilian and U.S. institutions, including the U.S.-Brazil Energy Forum, the Fazenda-Treasury Climate Partnership, the U.S.-Brazil Climate and Clean Technology Plan, the U.S.-Brazil CEO Forum, the U.S.-Brazil Clean Energy Industry Dialogue, the U.S.-Brazil Climate Change Working Group, and the U.S.-Brazil Strategic Minerals Dialogue.

Through this partnership, announced by Presidents Lula and Biden, Brazil and the United States intend to mobilize all relevant government agencies in our countries to shape and accelerate just and inclusive energy transitions and provide the needed signals for public and private sector stakeholders to fully participate in this effort.

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President Biden met today with President Claudia Sheinbaum of Mexico in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil on the margins of the G20 Leaders’ Summit.  President Biden expressed his congratulations on her recent election and reaffirmed the United States’ commitment to building a prosperous North America with good paying jobs.  The two leaders underscored the importance of maintaining cooperation on migration, security and tackling the scourge of transnational criminal violence, and economic issues, building on the strong bilateral partnership between the United States and Mexico.

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President Biden met today with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil on the margins of the G20 Leaders’ Summit.  President Biden thanked Prime Minister Trudeau for Canada’s strong partnership as weaddress the main challenges of our time, including creating jobs and opportunities for the middle class, combating climate change, managing migration, strengthening our alliances including NATO, and addressing humanitarian needs in Haiti and globally.  President Biden reaffirmed the United States’ commitment to the shared goal of continental and Arctic defense, and underscored the importance of Canadian defense investment and the modernization of the Columbia River Treaty.  The two leaders agreed that strengthening democracy and rule of law were essential to the prosperity and success of North America.   

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President Biden Announces U.S. has surpassed his goal of providing $11 billion per year in international climate financing

President Biden to sign a proclamation designating International Conservation Day; becomes first sitting U.S. president to visit the Amazon

Since Day One of the Biden-Harris Administration, the fight against climate change has been a defining cause of President Biden’s leadership and presidency. These past four years, the Administration has created a bold new playbook that has turned tackling the climate crisis into an enormous economic opportunity – both at home and abroad. After spearheading the most significant domestic climate and conservation action in history and leading global efforts to tackle the climate crisis, today President Biden is traveling to Manaus, Brazil, where he will meet with Indigenous and other leaders and become the first sitting U.S. president to visit the Amazon rainforest.

The President has leveraged our Nation’s leadership on domestic climate and conservation action to help accelerate global efforts to combat and reverse deforestation and deploy nature-based solutions that reduce emissions, enhance biodiversity, and build resilience to a changing climate. As part of advancing this ambitious climate and conservation agenda, the Administration is investing in Amazon conservation efforts, sustainable land management, and wildfire prevention, while also strengthening our Nation’s collaboration with Brazil, support for Indigenous communities, and efforts to combat illegal deforestation in the Amazon and around the world.

Today, as part of his historic trip to the Amazon, President Biden will announce that the United States has fulfilled his historic pledge to increase U.S. international climate finance to over $11 billion a year by 2024 – making the United States the largest bilateral provider of climate finance in the world.  This represents a more than six-fold increase from the $1.5 billion in climate finance the U.S. provided in FY21, underscoring the success of President Biden’s whole-of-government effort to scaling-up U.S. climate finance over the last four years.  This also includes achieving for the second year in a row his pledge to scale-up U.S. adaptation finance six-fold to over $3 billion per year to help vulnerable countries around the world build resilience to the impacts of climate change, as part of implementing the President’s Emergency Plan for Adaptation and Resilience (PREPARE).  This also included achieving record-levels of climate investments through the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation (DFC) and U.S. Export Import Bank (EXIM) – with DFC reaching $3.71 billion in FY24 and EXIM increasing its investments to a record $1.6 billion in FY24.

President Biden will also sign a U.S. proclamation designating November 17th as International Conservation Day. The proclamation recognizes that conservation is critical to protecting the livelihoods of the people who depend on our world’s natural wonders, conserving our ecosystems and wildlife, ensuring our lands and waters can be enjoyed for generations to come, and helping avoid the worst impacts of climate change.  

Central to today’s trip is President Biden’s commitment to conserving our forests and combatting global deforestation. Over the past four years, the Administration has led efforts to conserve more than 45 million acres of lands and waters; safeguard mature and old-growth forests on Federal lands here at home; strengthen reforestation partnerships across the country to support local economies; combat global deforestation; and deploy nature-based solutions that reduce emissions, enhance biodiversity, and build resilience in the face of increasing climate threats.  Today, the Biden-Harris Administration is announcing new efforts to accelerate global action to conserve lands and waters, protect biodiversity, and tackle the climate crisis, including:

• Announcing $50 Million for the Amazon Fund. The United States is announcing $50 million for the Amazon Fund, which will bring U.S. total contributions to the Amazon Fund to $100 million, subject to Congressional notification.

• Launching the Brazil Restoration & Bioeconomy Finance Coalition. The United States, BTG Pactual, and over 12 partners are announcing the launch of the Brazil Restoration and Bioeconomy Finance Coalition.  This Coalition intends to mobilize at least $10 billion in public and private investment for land restoration and bioeconomy-related projects by 2030, supporting the conservation and restoration of at least 5.5 million hectares during this period, and contributing to 1.5 gigatons of emissions reductions and removals through 2050. At least $500 million is expected to be invested in projects that support Indigenous peoples and local communities in the Brazilian Amazon.

• Announcing a New DFC Investment in the Largest Reforestation Projects in the Amazon. DFC is providing a $37.5 million loan to Mombak Gestora de Recursos Ltda., to support the large-scale planting of native tree species on degraded grasslands in Brazil, which will sequester carbon and enable biodiversity conservation. Mombak has designed an innovative and large-scale approach to generating high-quality “Verified Emission Reduction (VER)” credits by acquiring large tracts of degraded grassland in the Brazilian state of Pará and surrounding regions, which it will plant with native tree species. This activity is expected to sequester approximately 5 million metric tons of CO2 over 50 years while preserving biodiversity in the Amazon region.

• Announcing Support for the Tropical Forest Forever Facility. The United States today announced its support for President Lula’s bold vision of creating the TFFF – a pathbreaking new $125 billion fund that reflects both the urgency and the scale of the challenge of conserving the world’s most important forests.  TFFF will attract substantial private capital and make a meaningful contribution to tropical forest conservation.  The United States is announcing support to help finalize the necessary technical and analytical work needed to design and setup the Facility.

These announcements supplement additional efforts the United States is taking to support climate resilience and biodiversity in critical ecosystems like the Amazon and others around the world, including:

Scaling Finance to Restore and Conserve These Important Landscapes

• Leveraging Demand for High-Integrity Forest Carbon Credits. The Lowering Emissions through Advancing Forest finance (LEAF) Coalition, co-founded by the United States as a coalition of private sector and government buyers, recently announced a $180 million agreement on high-integrity forest carbon credits with the Brazilian state of Pará. Revenues from the transaction of credits generated at the scale of the entire state, at the pathbreaking price of $15/tonne of avoided emissions, will support the conservation of the Amazon Rainforest. The agreement is LEAF’s first deal in the Amazon. Next steps include full consultations with stakeholders, program validation and verification of results under the ART-TREES standard. Agreements with additional Amazon region states are expected in the coming months, starting with Acre, with significant demand-side interest for high-integrity credits from Brazilian states. 

• New Cooperation Framework Agreement Between DFC and BNDES. Last month, DFC and Banco Nacional de Desenvolvimento Econômico e Social (BNDES), the Brazilian Development Bank, signed a cooperation framework agreement to enhance and deepen co-investment opportunities in Brazil in climate-related sectors. This new partnership hopes to expand support for conservation and restoration investments at scale in the Amazon’s arch of reforestation and other important biodiversity-rich biomes.

• Launching a Nature-Based Solutions Investment Lab. Instituto Itausa, BB Asset, Bloomberg Philanthropies, and Instituto Clima e Sociedade are partnering with USAID to structure a nature-based solutions (NbS) Investment Lab with $2 million from USAID. The lab will foster an enabling environment to unlock private investment in NbS projects by creating interaction and collaboration among different sources of funds, sources of capital, and NbS stakeholders to create innovative financial instruments and transactions; identifying and designing appropriate business models, standardized projects and assessment of impacts of NbS projects in Brazil; and addressing regulatory challenges and advocate for policy enhancements.

• Launching Alliances for the Amazon. This initiative will build on an existing partnership with the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) that created a collective action platform to join private sector and civil society organizations to develop and identify innovative solutions for sustainable development and conservation of the Brazilian Amazon. In its prior phase with USAID support, the Partnership accelerated 123 biodiversity-supportive businesses, leveraged $7.5 million in private funding, and supported conservation of 39 million hectares. The new AFA partnership will expand USAID-CIAT’s ground-breaking TerraBio scientific methodology for measuring biodiversity impact for Amazon-based impact investment projects.

• USAID will Provide $2.6 Million to the Rainforest Wealth Project, led by IMAFLORA in collaboration with Instituto Socioambiental (ISA), which seeks to establish scalable economic models to conserve standing forests, meet legal requirements, enhance local community welfare, and achieve responsible market standards. The project aims to expand the Origens Brasil network to facilitate fair trade for community-produced goods, increasing corporate participation and commitment within the network. It also focuses on strengthening the value chains for non-timber forest products and promoting agroecology among family farmers, traditional communities, settlers, and quilombolas across northern and southeastern Pará, bringing them into the Origens Brasil network.

Building the Bioeconomy

• Announcing $4 million to Support New Business Models that Keep Forests Standing While Benefitting Local Businesses and Families. USAID is announcing $4 million to support a program that it is codesigning with local organization Conexsus to strengthen the bioeconomy business ecosystems in the Brazilian Amazon, bolstering a new economic model that keeps the forest standing and aligns biodiversity conservation with economic growth for local businesses and families to thrive.  This initiative builds on a Memorandum of Understanding signed last March between the Skoll Foundation and USAID that recognized their shared commitment to advance locally led development and expand coordination to address deforestation issues and promote gender equality globally.

• USAID is Investing $1.4 Million in Assobio: The Call for Socio-Biodiversity. This project will strengthen bioeconomy value chains that hold potential for forest and biodiversity conservation while increasing income generation and addressing food security in the state of Mato Grosso. The project’s aim is to strengthen a thriving forest-based economy by creating new public-private arrangements that attract financing and promoting diversified strategies to support regenerative land management, entrepreneurial knowledge, and access to financial resources and markets for family farming and Indigenous people in Mato Grosso’s Amazon region. This will significantly contribute to the conservation of approximately one-third of the forest in Mato Grosso, an area of 8.9 million hectares.

Supporting Low-Carbon, Climate-Resilient Supply Chains

• USAID is Investing $2.8 Million in the Regenerative Agriculture for the Conservation of the Amazon (ARCA) Activity. The ARCA program promotes nature-based solutions and restoration in buffer zones around conservation units, Indigenous lands, quilombolas, and land reform settlements in seven territories in three of Brazil’s Amazonian states—Mato Grosso, Maranhão, and Pará, all of which are located in the Brazilian Amazon’s Arc of Deforestation. ARCA’s aim is to promote sustainable land use, biodiversity conservation, and the socio-environmental resilience of traditional communities through capacity building, collaboration, and innovation. ARCA aims to help improve the management of more than 19 million hectares of land in the Amazon, working with 40 Indigenous Territories and Quilombola Areas.

• The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) is Supporting Efforts to Improve Fertilizer Efficiency.USDA has partnered with Brazilian and U.S. institutions on a groundbreaking joint research project to improve fertilizer efficiency, with the goal of combatting climate change and food insecurity. The project, called “Fertilize for Life,” currently funded at $1.2 million is part of USDA’s Fertilize Right Initiative, launched in 2023 with support from the U.S. Department of State’s Global Fertilizer Challenge, and focuses on enabling cooperation on more efficient, climate-friendly land use has significant potential to scale sustainable agriculture, improve productivity and farmers’ livelihoods, while reducing nitrous oxide emissions.

• The Department of State, through a $2.5 million award to the Nature Conservancy (TNC), is supporting efforts to reduce deforestation associated with the Brazilian cattle sector by improving traceability of cattle throughout the entire supply chain. These interventions aim to support the cattle industry in avoiding 400 million metric tons of carbon emissions per year from deforestation and habitat loss, alongside reductions in methane emissions. This effort is anchored in the State of Para, which has set a goal of achieving full cattle traceability by 2025.

Leveraging Technology to Support Forest Conservation and Management

• Partnering with the Government of Brazil to Combat Illegal Logging and Associated Trade.  The U.S. is cooperating to ensure Brazil possesses state-of-the-art technology and operational capacity for timber identification via Mass Spectrometry (DART-TOFMS: Direct Analysis in Real Time Time-of-Flight Mass Spectrometry). This technology identifies a unique chemical “fingerprint” to identify wood species, strengthening capacity to monitor and enforce legality in timber supply chains.

• The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is Supporting Near Real-Time Burn Area Mapping Efforts to the Remote Sensing Laboratory at Rio de Janeiro Federal University, providing key satellite observations used by Sistema Alarmes. The system generates daily burned area mapping updates for major endangered biomes in Brazil, helping inform decision making at the Brazilian Ministry for the Environment and Climate Change. For more than 15 years NOAA has also supported the satellite-based wildfire monitoring program at the Brazilian Institute for Space Research. That program provides critical near real-time fire detection information for most of South America using a suite of satellite datasets.

• USAID is Investing $7.8 million in its Longstanding Partnership with the U.S. Forest Service to Strengthen Brazilian Fire Management. USAID and the U.S. Forest Service support Brazilian agencies with wildfire prevention and response. Standardized fire curricula ensure all firefighters share a common language and standardized approaches like the Incident Command System. USFS promotes inclusive fire management, training women and Indigenous communities, including the first-ever all-women Indigenous fire brigade in Tocantins and Maranhão. 

Delivering for Local and Indigenous Communities

• USAID is Investing $1.9 Million to Launch the Alliance of Indigenous Peoples for the Forests of the Eastern Amazon. This alliance will bring together organizations representing Indigenous people to conserve, protect, and restore natural resources in 14 Indigenous territories in Maranhão and Tocantins states. The project will cover a total combined area of approximately 2.5 million hectares of land that is home to a population of roughly 35,000 individuals from 11 ethnic groups, as well as a group in voluntary isolation.

• Expanding Support for Existing U.S. Programs Including the Indigenous Peoples Finance Access Facility (IPFAF). This project aims to increase access to financing for Indigenous communities for forest conservation, restoration, and management with a focus on Indigenous peoples in the Amazon basin, as well as the Congo Basin, and Southeast Asia. IPFAF is also working to enhance the capacity of Indigenous peoples and their representative organizations to protect and sustainably manage natural resources in 27 million hectares of forested landscapes of southern Amazonas state, and across savannah and forested landscapes of Roraima state.

• USAID Is Investing $4 Million to Launch the Tapajós for Life Activity, which aims to reduce threats to Amazon biodiversity by improving sustainable use and conservation of 7 million hectares of protected areas and Indigenous peoples’ lands and local communities’ lands in the Tapajós river basin. It will expand the sustainable value chains for forest products, support community-based tourism, and improve territorial management within the river basin.

• USAID will Invest $1.4 Million to Launch the Well-Being and Territorial Management in the Rio Negro and Xingu River Basins Project. This activity seeks to strengthen the capacity of Indigenous peoples of the Xingu and Rio Negro River basins—and their networks of partnerships—to implement Brazil’s National Policy for the Territorial and Environmental Management of Indigenous Lands (PNGATI) and its management instruments, such as the Territorial and Environmental Management Plans. Strengthening the environmental management of these Indigenous territories in the Rio Negro and Xingu basins could help sustainably manage approximately 26 million hectares of land that are strategically important for the conservation of biodiversity in the Brazilian Amazon. 

• USAID is investing $2.6 million to launch the Integrated Indigenous Territorial Management activity, which will support Indigenous representative organizations to develop territorial and environmental management plans that incorporate policy advocacy on Indigenous lands, enhancing the capacity of Indigenous peoples and their representative organizations to protect and sustainably manage natural resources in a total combined area of 27 million hectares in forested landscapes of southern Amazonas state, and across the savannah and forested landscapes of Roraima state.

Leveraging U.S.-Brazil Science and Technology Partnerships

• Launching Zero Carbon Advanced Energy Systems in the Amazon. The U.S. Department of Energy will execute an assessment of renewable mini-grid deployment in the Legal Amazon region with the goal of supporting Brazil’s Energies of the Amazon Program. A flagship program for President Lula, Energies of the Amazon intends to decrease the region’s negative social and environmental impacts associated with reliance on fossil fuels. By supporting the deployment of reliable, clean power to vulnerable communities in the Amazon, this project will contribute to faster social and economic development in the region.

• Advancing One Health Cooperation in Brazil and the Amazon Basin: The National Science Foundation and its partners will announce $17 million for Belmont Forum grants focused on climate, environment, and health cooperation.  Of these, nearly $3 million in funding is for projects across Brazil and the Amazon Basin. 

• Provided $1.4 Million to Reduce Organized Criminal Activity Related to Illegal Mining and Trafficking of Mercury. The U.S. is promoting the rule of law and economic development in the Brazilian Amazon.  Illegal mining, often marked by its affiliation with organized crime groups, poses a significant threat to peace, stability, and the rule of law, as well as for the environment, ranging from illegal deforestation and water source contamination to air pollution and land degradation.

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President Joseph R. Biden Jr. met with President Xi Jinping of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in Lima, Peru today.  This meeting is the third between the two Presidents and follows their April 2, 2024, telephone call.  The two leaders had a candid, constructive discussion on a range of bilateral, regional, and global issues, including areas of cooperation and areas of difference.

President Biden underscored that U.S. investment in sources of strength at home and alignment with partners and allies around the world have been central to his Administration’s foreign policy approach.  He welcomed efforts to maintain open channels of communication with the PRC to manage competition responsibly and prevent it from veering into conflict or confrontation. 

The two leaders reviewed the bilateral relationship over the past four years and took stock of efforts to responsibly manage competitive aspects of the relationship and advance areas of cooperation since the Woodside Summit in November 2023, including counternarcotics, military-military communication, artificial intelligence-related risks, climate change, and people-to-people exchanges.

On counternarcotics, both sides affirmed the importance of continued coordinated law enforcement actions, information exchanges to identify new and emerging drug trends, and regulatory actions.  President Biden welcomed the PRC’s scheduling of 55 dangerous synthetic drugs and precursor chemicals, closure of online platforms and companies that supply precursor chemicals, and arrests connected to the illicit chemical industry, and he called for additional steps in the period ahead.  Both sides welcomed the resumption over the last year of high-level military-to-military communications, the U.S.-China Defense Policy Coordination Talks, U.S.-China Military Maritime Consultative Agreement meetings, and engagements between theater commanders.  Both leaders affirmed the need to continue these channels of communication.

Building on a candid and constructive dialogue on AI and co-sponsorship of each other’s resolutions on AI at the United Nations General Assembly, the two leaders affirmed the need to address the risks of AI systems, improve AI safety and international cooperation, and promote AI for the good of all. The two leaders affirmed the need to maintain human control over the decision to use nuclear weapons.  The two leaders also stressed the need to consider carefully the potential risks and develop AI technology in the military field in a prudent and responsible manner.

The two leaders also exchanged views on key regional and global challenges.  President Biden condemned the deployment of thousands of DPRK troops to Russia, a dangerous expansion of Russia’s unlawful war against Ukraine with serious consequences for both European and Indo-Pacific peace and security. He expressed deep concern over the PRC’s continued support for Russia’s defense industrial base.  President Biden emphasized the United States’ commitment to upholding international law and freedom of navigation, overflight, and peace and stability in the South China Sea and East China Sea. On Taiwan, President Biden underscored that the United States’ one China policy remains unchanged, guided by the Taiwan Relations Act, the three Joint Communiques, and the Six Assurances.  He reiterated that the United States opposes any unilateral changes to the status quo from either side, that we expect cross-Strait differences to be resolved by peaceful means, and that the world has an interest in peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait.  He called for an end to destabilizing PRC military activity around Taiwan.

President Biden raised concerns about the PRC’s unfair trade policies and emphasized that the United States will continue to take necessary actions to prevent advanced U.S. technologies from being used to undermine the national security of the United States or its partners, without unduly limiting trade and investment. The President noted the importance of human rights and the responsibility of all nations to respect their human rights commitments.  He emphasized that it remains a priority to resolve the cases of American citizens who are unjustly detained or subject to exit bans in China.  The President raised deep concerns about ongoing PRC cyberattacks targeting civilian critical infrastructure and threatening the safety and security of Americans.

Building on the Bali and Woodside meetings, the two leaders stressed the importance of responsibly managing competitive aspects of the relationship, preventing conflict, maintaining open lines of communication, cooperating on areas of shared interest, upholding the UN Charter, and all countries treating each other with respect and finding a way to live alongside each other peacefully.  Both leaders reiterated the importance of maintaining a strategic channel of communication to responsibly manage the relationship and called for continued use of diplomatic, military, law enforcement, commercial, and financial channels.

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President Biden met today with President Dina Boluarte of Peru at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Leaders’ week in Lima, Peru.  President Biden congratulated President Boluarte for Peru’s successful APEC host year and thanked her for Peru’s longstanding partnership with the United States.  The two leaders discussed U.S.-Peru cooperation in security and counternarcotics, economic investment and trade, and space collaboration.  

President Biden reiterated our commitment to support Peru’s counternarcotics capabilities through a $65 million security assistance package that includes the planned transfer of nine Black Hawk helicopters.  He thanked President Boluarte for Peru’s close coordination on counternarcotics, including Peru’s decision to approve measures required to share radar information between the United States and Peru for the first time in a decade.  President Biden also highlighted a California Caltrain donation of more than 100 locomotives to the city of Lima to promote cleaner transportation.  Lastly, President Biden discussed our expanded space cooperation with Peru, including through a NASA Sounding Rocket Memorandum of Understanding that NASA Administrator Bill Nelson and Peruvian counterparts signed as part of this visit.

The two leaders also discussed the challenges in Venezuela.  President Biden thanked Peru for its support at the Organization of American States and the United Nations to call for the return to democratic governance in Venezuela. 

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We, the leaders of Japan, the Republic of Korea (ROK), and the United States, convened in the spirit of Camp David to commemorate the remarkable progress our three countries have made since our Trilateral Leaders’ Summit in 2023. Japan, the ROK, and the United States stand united in our dedication to promote human rights, democracy, security, and prosperity in the Indo-Pacific region and beyond. We remain determined to align our collective efforts to ensure the continued success of our peoples, the region, and the world. We remain steadfast in our support for a free and open rules-based international order. The actions that we take together will continue to bolster regional and global peace and security well into the future.

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During the past 15 months, we have constructed a trilateral partnership that is built to last. Today, we announce the establishment of the Trilateral Secretariat responsible for coordinating and implementing our shared commitments. This new secretariat will seek to ensure that the work we do together further aligns our objectives and actions to make the Indo-Pacific a thriving, connected, resilient, stable, and secure region.

We applaud our expanding trilateral security cooperation, including the successful first two iterations of the trilateral multi-domain exercise Freedom Edge and the signing of the Memorandum of Cooperation on the Trilateral Security Cooperation Framework to institutionalize trilateral cooperation among our defense authorities. Our trilateral defense engagements are expanding to annual Chiefs of Defense and ministerial meetings that build upon existing senior-level policy consultations, information sharing, trilateral exercises, and defense exchanges. Japan, the ROK, and the United States are promoting trilateral interoperability by sharing data in real time about ballistic missile launches by the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) and by working to strengthen our ballistic missile defense capabilities. We are enhancing junior officer exchanges to further build interoperability and people-to-people ties among our defense forces. President Biden reiterates that the U.S. commitments to the defense of the ROK and Japan are ironclad and reaffirms the U.S. commitment to strengthen extended deterrence cooperation through the ROK-U.S. and Japan-U.S. alliances. These actions underscore our three countries’ shared commitment to consult on regional challenges, provocations, and threats affecting our collective interests and security.

We strongly condemn violations of multiple United Nations Security Council (UNSC) resolutions by the DPRK and Russia, especially in light of the DPRK’s decision to deploy troops to Russia for combat against Ukraine. Japan, the ROK, and the United States strongly condemn the decisions by the leaders of the DPRK and Russia to dangerously expand Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine. Deepening military cooperation between the DPRK and Russia, including munitions and ballistic missile transfers, is particularly egregious given Russia’s status as a Permanent Member of the UN Security Council. We remain resolute as ever in supporting Ukraine as it exercises its inherent right to self-defense as enshrined in Article 51 of the UN Charter.

We reaffirm our commitment to the complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, consistent with UNSC resolutions. We commit to respond firmly to violations and evasions of DPRK-related UNSC resolutions as well as any attempt to undermine the global non-proliferation regime. Japan, the ROK, and the United States are committed to the work of the new Multilateral Sanctions Monitoring Team responsible for conducting comprehensive and effective sanctions monitoring and reporting efforts regarding UNSC sanctions on the DPRK. We express grave concern over the DPRK’s illicit revenue generation methods, including its use of arms transfers, malicious cyber activities, and the dispatch of workers abroad, to fund its unlawful weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missile programs. We are committed to expanding trilateral efforts to counter the DPRK’s malicious cyber program and illicit revenue generation, including by collaborating to build capacity across the Indo-Pacific region to better protect against illicit DPRK activities. Our three countries continue to call for adherence to shared international norms and responsible behavior in the cyber domain to protect public critical infrastructure placed at risk by disruptive or destabilizing cyber activities. Prime Minister Ishiba and President Biden acknowledge their support for President Yoon’s vision of a free, peaceful, and prosperous Korean Peninsula and reiterate their support for a unified Korean Peninsula that is free and at peace. With a clear recognition of the inextricable link between DPRK human rights issues and international peace and security, we promote the advancement of human rights in the DPRK and call for the immediate resolution of the issues of abductees, detainees, and unrepatriated prisoners of war.

We reaffirm the importance of maintaining peace and stability throughout the Indo-Pacific region. We reaffirm our unwavering support for ASEAN centrality and unity and for the ASEAN-led regional architecture. We are committed to working closely with ASEAN to support robust implementation and mainstreaming of the ASEAN Outlook on the Indo-Pacific. We express concerns about illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing, and we take this opportunity to announce a new Trilateral Maritime Security and Law Enforcement Cooperation Framework that will strengthen our cooperation on shared regional challenges and protect rules-based approaches to the maritime domain.

We strongly oppose any unilateral attempts to change the status quo in the waters of the Indo-Pacific, and we recognize the importance of opposing unlawful maritime claims in the South China Sea. We steadfastly oppose the dangerous use of coast guard and maritime militia vessels and coercive activities in the South China Sea. We express support for the global maritime order, including the freedoms of navigation and overflight, based on international law, as reflected in the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. We recognize that peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait is an indispensable element of security and prosperity in the Indo-Pacific region. There is no change in our basic positions on Taiwan, and we call for the peaceful resolution of cross-Strait issues.

Japan, the ROK, and the United States are committed to deepening our trilateral economic partnership, including through continuing our close coordination on economic security. Japan and the United States look forward to the ROK’s hosting of APEC in 2025 and welcome the ROK’s chairmanship of the Minerals Security Partnership (MSP). Japan and the United States are committed to closely coordinating with the ROK to accelerate MSP projects. We recognize the MSP as a crucial institutional forum to develop a more diverse and sustainable critical minerals supply chain. We welcome the progress made by the Resilient and Inclusive Supply-chain Enhancement (RISE) partnership. We commend the Trilateral Economic Security Dialogue for deepening trilateral engagements on economic security issues, and we welcome regularized, active consultation among our countries to exchange early warning information on supply chain disruptions. We applaud the successful first trilateral meeting between our finance ministries and look forward to the next convening. We commit to continue cooperating to promote sustainable economic growth and financial stability, as well as orderly and well-functioning financial markets. We commend the successful launch of the first trilateral Commerce and Industry Ministerial Meeting and look forward to the next convening. We reaffirm our longstanding commitment to advancing women’s economic empowerment, including through the upcoming 2024 Trilateral Women’s Economic Empowerment Conference in Washington. We applaud women leaders in STEM who are working to address barriers to entry and advancement. In addition, we are committed to enhancing cooperation within the Crisis Response Network established under the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework Supply Chain Agreement—with the ROK as the Chair and Japan as the Vice Chair—to ensure members maintain access to vital supplies during emergencies.

We concur on the need for trilateral collaboration on technology security, standards, and trusted ecosystems, and we commit to develop a trilateral framework to further advance our next generation critical and emerging technology cooperation. We hail the successful launch of the Trilateral Technology Leaders Training Program, which has served to train and connect policymakers focusing on semiconductors, artificial intelligence (AI), quantum technology, digital economy, biotechnology, cybersecurity, energy, and space. In addition, Japan, the ROK, and the United States are working to accelerate the development of a trusted AI ecosystem across our three countries. We are strengthening commercial collaboration around AI chips in addition to enhancing protections for critical technology and strengthening engagement on AI safety. We are working to build resilient supply chains for active pharmaceutical ingredients through the “Bio-5” coalition. As founding members of the Quantum Development Group, we look forward to further strengthening cooperation on supply chains and trusted investment in our quantum ecosystems. We are proud of the launch of a new quantum workforce program by IBM, in partnership with Japanese, Korean, and U.S. universities, which aims to train 40,000 students over the next decade. We also welcome trilateral cooperation among our national research institutes, and we stress the significance of the successful launch of the Disruptive Technology Protection Network, which is essential for combatting illicit technology transfer.

Japan, the ROK, and the United States also are expanding our cooperation on development and humanitarian assistance across the globe, including through a senior-level biennial policy dialogue. Together, Japan, the ROK, and the United States have expanded trilateral development assistance to the Philippines and Ukraine. We commit to further advance collaboration in critical sectors across the Philippines, including ports modernization, energy infrastructure, agribusiness, and large-scale transportation projects. We support trilateral digital infrastructure and telecommunications initiatives in Southeast Asia, including through the expansion of digital infrastructure using Open RAN approaches across the region.

People-to-people ties between Japan, the ROK, and the United States are rapidly expanding, and we are discussing ways to maintain and build upon this momentum. We applaud the successful first Trilateral Global Leadership Youth Summit this year and look forward to the 2025 Youth Summit in Japan as the next iteration of what we hope will become an annual convening of youth delegates focused on tackling our shared security, economic, and environmental challenges. Furthermore, we support the newly launched Young Trilateral Leaders program, which aims to foster dialogue between our countries and concrete action by young people on global challenges.

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Our cooperation has soared to new heights in every corner of our governments, and we have created a brighter, safer, and more prosperous future for our people. We are proud of the partnership we have built and believe that the Japan-ROK-U.S. relationship will be a ballast of peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific for years to come.

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Today, ahead President Biden’s meeting with President Boluarte of Peru on the margins of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum, the United States commemorates our indispensable partnership with Peru.  The United States and Peru will celebrate 200 years of diplomatic relations in 2026, which will mark two centuries of strong ties in the areas of diplomacy, trade, sustainable development, security, democracy and human rights, counter-narcotics, and protecting the environment.  This year, the United States and Peru marked 15 years of the United States-Peru Trade Promotion Agreement.  Since 2001, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) has invested over $1.8 billion to promote economic, social, and political development and to support Peru as it manages the migration flows impacting the region.  Peru is a founding partner of the Americas Partnership for Economic Prosperity (Americas Partnership or APEP) initiative, endorsed the Los Angeles Declaration on Migration and Protection, and recently agreed to increase cooperation with the United States on space and critical minerals.

Recent examples of our strong collaboration in key areas include:

Bolstering Security and Strengthening the Rule of Law.  The United States and Peru maintain a long-standing security and defense partnership focused on strengthening counternarcotics operations, combatting transnational organized crime, improving disaster response, building peacekeeping capacity, and bolstering regional security.

• During APEC Economic Leaders’ Week, the U.S. government announced a $65 million counternarcotics assistance package that includes the planned transfer of nine Black Hawk helicopters to Peru over the next five years.  This assistance, along with the decision by the United States and Peru to restart cooperation under the non-lethal aerial interception agreement for the first time in 10 years, will support Peru’s efforts to combat narcotics trafficking and transnational organized crime. 

• Since Fiscal Year (FY) 2015, the United States, through the Department of State’s Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement, has provided more than $350 million in assistance to Peruvian law enforcement institutions to combat narcotics trafficking, disrupt transnational criminal organizations, and promote the rule of law.

• The United States is reinforcing security at the Port of Chancay through technical assistance and provision three cargo and vehicle inspection scanners totaling more than $8.5 million.  These state-of-the-art scanners will ensure that cargo moving through the port does not pose a safety threat to Peru.

• The United States Southern Command provides extensive training and capacity building on cyber defense strategies to Peru.  The United States and Peru co-led Resolute Sentinel military exercises in 2023 and 2024 to enhance interoperability among security forces in the region.  The United States has invested $750,000 in the construction of training areas, barracks, and buildings to support emergency response in Peru.

• This year, the United States and Peru relaunched the Defense Bilateral Working Group to be followed by the Political-Military Dialogue in 2025.  The United States and Peru also established a Bilateral Security Working Group to develop and address security issues facing Peru and the region.

• The U.S. Naval Medical Research Unit SOUTH (NAMRU-SOUTH) is a U.S. Navy command that conducts research on infectious diseases in South and Central America.  It is collocated on Peruvian naval bases in Callao and Iquitos, Peru, and is comprised of 15 U.S. active-duty military, five Department of Defense civilians, and nearly 180 Peruvian staff.

• The U.S. Coast Guard completed four successful partnership engagements with Peru during 2024 aimed at minimizing risks of inadequate illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing (IUU-F) and port regulation and oversight, the lack of which leads to corruption, coercion, and other illicit activities.

Promoting Mutual Economic Prosperity, Development, and Good Governance

• The United States is Peru’s number one partner in job creation, generating over 1.1 million jobs in Peru in 2023 through bilateral trade totaling more than $20.5 billion in 2023, according to Peru’s Ministry of Foreign Trade and Tourism.  U.S. direct investment in Peru in 2023 was more than $6.6 billion.

• Through Peru’s active participation in the Americas Partnership, we are driving inclusive, sustainable growth and strengthening critical supply chains via increased trade and investment.

• More than 500,000 U.S. citizens visit Peru annually, providing the largest single group of visitors that sustains Peru’s world-class tourism sector.  Peru has the largest Summer Work and Travel program of any country with 8,000 young Peruvians providing important annual staffing for U.S. ski resorts, theme parks, and small businesses.

• The State Department and USAID provided more than $580 million for Peru to advance critical development and humanitarian priorities since FY 2021 in support of efforts to strengthen democratic institutions and procurement transparency, combat environmental crime, protect natural resources, support farmers in cultivating alternative crops to coca, and enhance health security.  This support includes $335 million in humanitarian assistance to support integration for migrants and meet their immediate humanitarian needs inside Peru.

• USAID mobilized more than $5 million in private investments to expand internet access for more than 100 rural Peruvian Amazon communities. The initiative has trained over 15,000 people in digital skills and provided financial education to more than 20,000 individuals.

• USAID has supported the boom in the cacao, chocolate, and coffee industries in Peru over the course of the past 15 years. As a result, Peru is the second largest producer of organic cacao in the world and is among the top 10 producers of conventional cacao.

A Space Partnership.  The United States and Peru are advancing space cooperation into civil and defense sectors.  A significant milestone in this partnership is Peru’s decision to join the Artemis Accords this year, committing to shared principles for responsible and sustainable space exploration.

• During APEC Economic Leaders’ Week, the United States’ National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and Peru’s Space Agency, the National Commission for Aerospace Research and Development (CONIDA), will sign a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to enhance space cooperation.  The MOU will include safety training, a joint feasibility study for a potential sounding rockets campaign, and technical assistance for CONIDA on sounding rocket launches, which are small, low-cost flight opportunities to suborbital space used to strengthen space science research and investigation.  Additionally, the U.S. and Peruvian governments will issue a Joint Communique on Space Exploration.

• In February 2024, USAID invested $2.1 million and partnered with NASA and the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) to launch the second phase of SERVIR Amazonia.  This three-year program uses cutting-edge NASA satellite data and geospatial technology to help Peru and others in the region address Amazon conservation, enhance climate risk strategies, and build resilience to extreme weather.

• The Department of Defense will deliver a telescope to Peru in 2025 to detect space debris, building on the Space Situational Awareness agreement that Peru signed with the United States Space Command in April 2023.

Safe, Secure, and Sustainable Infrastructure.  The United States’ public and private sectors play a significant role in strengthening Peru’s infrastructure through investments and capacity—building in critical sectors such as transportation, water and sanitation, energy, and agriculture.  This year Peru became the first country in Latin America to join the Blue Dot Network for quality infrastructure.

• Rail:  California commuter rail line Caltrain will donate 90 passenger cars and 19 locomotives to the city of Lima for its commuter metro rail project.  This transaction, facilitated by the U.S. Departments of State and Commerce, will provide efficient public transit, save the city of Lima millions of dollars, and generate up to $500 million in U.S. exports of rail, track material, signaling systems, and protection equipment for crossings.

• Seaports:  In October, Peru’s National Port Authority approved the master plan for the Port of Matarani, an expansion proposal that includes new U.S. private sector investments of more than $500 million to enable continued growth in Peru’s southern region as Latin America’s main port for copper and a key port for agricultural exports.  The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is providing thePeruvian Navy technical expertise through a $180 million foreign military sales case for construction at the Peruvian naval port at Callao, which may lead to a $1 billion effort beginning in 2025 to construct the new port for the Peruvian Navy.

• Sister Ports:  On November 1, the U.S. port of Hueneme in California and the Peruvian port of Paita established a “sister port” relationship under the new U.S. Sister Ports Program, managed by the Department of State’s Office of Transportation Policy.  The ports will exchange best practices in safety and security, smart port technology, sustainability, green shipping corridors, public-private collaboration, and port business and marketing.

• Clean Water:  The Transaction Advisory Fund (TAF)—a joint program of the U.S. State Department and USAID—is working with the Regional Government of Cajamarca and the U.S. private sector to support implementation studies for the Huatalpampa reservoir project in Cajamarca to close the region’s sizeable water infrastructure gap.  Furthermore, in FY 2023, USAID mobilized $30 million in new investments for water security through 15 projects in Peru, including improving natural water sources, wetlands, and watersheds.

• Management and Reform:  USAID, in partnership with the U.S. Department of Commerce, has invested more than $2.4 million to improve Peru’s national public procurement system, build the capacity of procurement staff, and engage the private sector in regulatory reform to tackle corruption and improve infrastructure.  USAID helped Peru achieve full compliance with the international Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative agreement this year.

• Investment:  The U.S. International Development Finance Corporation (DFC) has a total of $45 million in active financial operations supporting businesses in Peru.  The DFC is working with financial intermediaries to support lending for small- and medium-scale agricultural producers, producer associations, and small merchants in the Peruvian Amazon.

Building People-to-People Connections.  The connections between the United States and Peruvian people embody the breadth and depth of our partnership.

• The Ambassadors Fund for Cultural Preservation has supported 36 local projects with $4.1 million in 16 regions of Peru.  Through the bilateral Cultural Patrimony Agreement, 2,000 cultural pieces have been repatriated to Peru over the past three decades.

• The Fulbright Commission in Peru will celebrate its 70th anniversary in May 2026 with support for over 3,200 scholarships to date.  Over 14,000 Peruvians form part of a global alumni network of U.S. government-funded educational and professional exchange programs.

• Embassy Lima processed a record 200,000+ visa applications in FY2024.  In 2023, over 330,000 Peruvians traveled to the United States. 

• A network of eight American Spaces—educational centers sponsored by the U.S. Department—with 30 branches throughout Peru supports the learning of English and U.S. culture for 85,000 students per month.

• The U.S. Regional English Language Office has trained over 1,750 Peruvian teachers and provides English language instruction to an average of 60 students per year.  In 2025, the Access Scholarship program will reach 220 new students ages 13-18 with a grant of $250,000 dedicated to English language instruction.

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Two years ago, shortly after I signed the CHIPS & Science Act, I visited Arizona to announce a commitment by TSMC to invest in America, create American jobs, and shore up American supply chains. On that day, I spoke about how the United States invented semiconductors and used to manufacture nearly 40% of the world’s chips, but now makes closer to 10% of them and none of the most advanced chips. I came to office determined to change that, and we have since delivered on that promise, catalyzing nearly $450 billion in private investment in semiconductors, creating over 125,000 new construction and manufacturing jobs, and reshoring critical technologies to bolster our national and economic security.

Today’s final agreement with TSMC – the world’s leading manufacturer of advanced semiconductors – will spur $65 billion dollars of private investment to build three state-of-the-art facilities in Arizona and create tens of thousands of jobs by the end of the decade. This is the largest foreign direct investment in a greenfield project in the history of the United States. The first of TSMC’s three facilities is on track to fully open early next year, which means that for the first time in decades an America manufacturing plant will be producing the leading-edge chips used in our most advanced technologies – from our smartphones, to autonomous vehicles, to the data centers powering artificial intelligence. 

Today’s announcement is among the most critical milestones yet in the implementation of the bipartisan CHIPS & Science Act, and demonstrates how we are ensuring that the progress made to date will continue to unfold in the coming years, benefitting communities all across the country.

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To have the best economy in the world, you have to have the best infrastructure in the world. That’s why three years ago, I was proud to sign the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law – the largest investment in our nation’s infrastructure in a generation. And when the bill passed, we showed that we can get big things done when we work together.

In just the three years since I signed the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, my Administration has launched over 66,000 projects across the country, repairing 196,000 miles of roads and 11,400 bridges, replacing 367,000 lead pipes, and expanding and modernizing ports and airports. And today, we’re investing an additional $1.5 billion in funding for rail investments along the Northeast Corridor – the most heavily trafficked rail corridor in the United States, supporting 800,000 trips per day – five times more passengers than all flights between Washington and New York.

We’re doing all this with American workers and products that are made in America. These investments are creating jobs, benefitting our communities, and ushering in an infrastructure decade that is planting the seeds for a better and more prosperous future.

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Over $695 billion in funding and over 74,000 projects announced thanks to President Biden’s Investing in America agenda

For far too long, this country’s infrastructure was under resourced and neglected, leading to crumbling roads and bridges, aging water systems, an unreliable electric grid, and inadequate high-speed internet access. Three years ago today, President Biden signed the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law – a once-in-a-generation investment in America’s infrastructure to reverse this trend, strengthen communities, and transform the U.S. economy. Since then, the Biden-Harris Administration has been breaking ground and cutting ribbons on projects in every state to rebuild roads and bridges, strengthening our supply chains, ensuring safe routes to schools, providing clean drinking water for communities, expanding high-speed internet access for all, and much more.

To date, the Administration has announced over $568 billion in Bipartisan Infrastructure Law funding, including over 66,000 projects and awards in all 50 states, D.C., the territories, and Tribal Nations. That’s part of the 74,000 total clean energy and infrastructure projects funded so far under the Biden-Harris Administration’s Investing in America agenda, which also includes historic investments in clean air water, climate action, and semiconductor manufacturing.

President Biden and Vice President Harris are delivering an Infrastructure Decade, unlocking access to economic opportunity, creating good-paying jobs, boosting domestic manufacturing, and growing America’s economy from the middle up and bottom out in every community across the country. His Investing in America agenda has improved the lives of millions of Americans and is planting the seeds for a better and more prosperous future for decades to come, including connecting everyone in America to reliable, affordable high-speed Internet service, replacing every lead pipe in the country and much more by the end of the decade.

HISTORIC PROGRESS BY THE NUMBERS

Thanks to the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, the Administration has already:

• Announced $568 billion for over 66,000 projects across the country;
• Started improvements on over 196,000 miles of roads and launched over 11,400 bridge repair projects, increasing safety and reconnecting communities across the country;
• Replaced 367,000 lead pipes, benefitting nearly 1 million people, with funding continuing to be deployed for more replacements;

• Provided funding to deploy over 4,600 American-made transit buses, more than doubling their number on America’s roadways, and funded approximately over 8,900 clean school buses;
• Delivered funding for over 580 port and waterway projects to strengthen supply chains, speed up the movement of goods, lower costs, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions;
• Deployed investments in over 400 airport terminal projects to modernize and expand terminals—over 200 of which are under construction or complete;
• Financed over 2,400 drinking water and wastewater projects across the country, including projects through the Indian Health Service that will deliver clean water to 100,000 Tribal households;
• Launched over 6,000 projects to help communities build resilience to threats such as the impacts of climate change and cyber-attacks;
• Provided funding to over 400 states, tribes, and territories and launched over 100 projects to improve the resilience and reliability of America’s electric grid and deliver cheaper and cleaner electricity—representing the largest single investment in electric transmission and distribution infrastructure in the history of the United States;
• Funded nearly 2,400 projects for water recycling, storage, conservation, desalination, and other purposes to improve drought resilience across the West;
• Removed hazardous fuel material from 18 million acres of land through the Infrastructure Law and other sources to protect communities from wildfires;
• Plugged over 9,600 orphaned oil and gas wells to address legacy pollution;
• Awarded funding to 95 previously unfunded Superfund projects, clearing a longstanding backlog of projects to clean up contaminated sites and advance environmental justice;
• Provided funding to 180 programs that advance President Biden’s Justice40 Initiative, which set a goal that 40% of the overall benefits of certain federal clean energy, climate, and other investments flow to disadvantaged communities;
• Created 940,000 construction jobs and construction employment is at a record high—higher than the previous peak before the Great Recession.

ACCOMPLISHMENTS ACROSS KEY SECTORS

The Biden-Harris Administration has made notable progress implementing the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law across key sectors:

• Roads and Bridges: Safe, modern transportation systems connect people to opportunity and critical destinations, bringing goods to market, bringing communities together, and enabling economic growth. That’s why President Biden secured the largest investment in transportation infrastructure, including roads, bridges, and major projects, since President Eisenhower’s investment in the Interstate Highway System. Since President Biden took office, improvements have started on over 196,000 miles of roads and over 11,400 bridge repair projects are underway – making our roadways safer and reconnecting communities across the country. This includes some of the most economically significant bridges in the country, like the Blatnik Bridge between Wisconsin and Minnesota or the I-55 America’s River Crossing between Tennessee and Arkansas. The Infrastructure Law is also funding thousands of smaller bridge projects, many of which are already complete, like the Second Avenue Bridge in Detroit and the Montgomery Avenue Bridge in Philadelphia.

• Rail: When President Biden took office, he laid out his vision to bring world-class passenger rail to the United States. That’s why the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law invests $66 billion in rail, the largest investment in passenger rail since the inception of Amtrak and an unprecedented investment in rail safety. Projects are underway across the country to modernize the Northeast Corridor – the most heavily trafficked rail corridor in the United States – to build new high-speed rail service, improve the efficiency of freight rail service, and eliminate dangerous rail crossings. An additional $1.5 billion will be announced today from the Department of Transportation for rail investments to provide faster, safer, and more reliable service for travelers and commuters. For example, the Brightline West High Speed Rail project broke ground earlier this year, using $3 billion from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to connect Las Vegas and Southern California with 200-mile-per-hour zero emission train service and creating more than 35,000 jobs.

• Airports: The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law invests $25 billion to modernize and upgrade airports and air traffic facilities nationwide, improving passenger experience through expanding capacity, increasing accessibility, and reducing delays. The Biden-Harris Administration has delivered funding for over 400 airport terminal projects to modernize and expand terminals – over 200 of which are under construction or complete­. This includes projects like the Phoenix-Mesa Gateway Airport Terminal Modernization project, where a new concourse was built with five new gates and upgraded waiting area was completed this year, and the San Diego International Airport Project, where construction is underway to build a new terminal with the addition of 30 gates, a five-story parking plaza, and roadway improvements. The Administration has also completed over 1,600 projects to upgrade and replace air traffic control towers to ensure the safe operation of the Nation’s airspace.

• Ports and Waterways: The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law invests $17 billion to upgrade our nation’s ports and waterways. The Department of Transportation and Army Corps of Engineers have together funded over 580 port and waterway projects to strengthen supply chain reliability, speed up the movement of goods, reduce costs, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Major projects are already under construction, including at Montgomery Locks and Dam in Pennsylvania and Soo Locks in Michigan, which received a combined $1.65 billion to modernize and expand aging locks on key rivers that are lynchpins of national supply chains, keeping critical goods flowing and lowering costs for families. The Army Corps of Engineers has also invested $142 million to make the Port of Norfolk, Virginia, the deepest port on the East Coast, allowing enhanced navigation for larger commercial vessels. And today, the Department of Transportation is announcing nearly $580 million to increase capacity and efficiency at coastal seaports, Great Lakes ports, and inland river ports.

• Transit and School Buses: The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law makes the largest investment in public transit ever, at nearly $90 billion – including billions to electrify or upgrade our bus, transit rail, and ferry fleets. Funding from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law has deployed over 4,600 American-made transit buses and over 8,900 clean school buses in over 1,300 communities across the country, prioritizing disadvantaged communities. Through the Capital Investment Grant program, the Administration is funding long-awaited capital projects – like the Mill Plains BRT in Vancouver, Washington, that provides fast, reliable transit service, and which opened earlier this year; and the Phoenix Northwest Light Rail Extension, which is now complete and is expected to transport nearly 2 million Phoenix residents to new stations and employ transit-oriented development to develop new housing and retail along this route.

• Clean Water: President Biden believes that every American should be able to turn on the tap and drink safe, clean water. To date, the Biden-Harris Administration has announced over $40.3 billion to provide clean water across the country and improve water infrastructure, as part of the largest investment in clean water in U.S. history. This includes $9 billion announced so far toward President Biden’s commitment to replace every lead pipe within a decade. Under this Administration, 367,000 lead pipes have already been replaced, benefiting nearly 1 million people and protecting communities across the country from the irreversible health effects of lead exposure. To further accelerate lead pipe replacement, last month President Biden announced a new rule requiring water systems nationwide to replace lead service lines within 10 years. Altogether, funding from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law has financed 2,400 drinking water and wastewater projects across the country. For example, the Lewis and Clark Rural Water System has now completed the construction of 300 miles of water pipeline to deliver reliable clean water to 350,000 people in rural Minnesota, Iowa, and South Dakota. In addition, the Biden-Harris Administration through the Department of Interior has funded 575 projects for water recycling, storage, conservation, desalination, and other purposes to improve drought resilience across the West. One project under construction is the B.F. Sisk Dam in California’s Central Valley, which has received over $210 million to fortify and expand the dam’s reservoir by 130,000 acre-feet, making it the largest addition of surface water storage currently underway in the country.

• High-Speed Internet: Since President Biden took office, 2.4 million American homes and small businesses have been connected to high-speed internet for the first time, and construction has begun in 21 states on high-speed internet projects that will improve network resilience and connect rural and Tribal communities. For example, homes and small businesses in Eureka, Montana, are now being connected to fiber-based high-speed internet through a $12 million USDA project. The Biden-Administration has also provided funding to more than 281 Tribal governments to connect over 65,000 Tribal households with high-speed internet. In addition, Infrastructure Law funding has helped launch construction on middle mile networks that are building or upgrading over 3,200 miles of middle mile high-speed internet infrastructure across 15 states and territories. One example is the HERO Project in North Carolina, an $11 million project to construct over 200 miles of fiber through central and southeastern North Carolina, including around Fort Liberty, Pope Air Force Base, and Camp Lejeune, benefitting both civilian and military populations. The Administration also implemented new rules to expose internet junk fees, enabling 300 million Americans to shop for home and mobile internet plans that best meet their needs and budget.

• Modernizing the Grid and Deploying Clean Energy: The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law includes more than $62 billion in funding at the Department of Energy to advance our clean energy future by investing in clean energy demonstration and deployment projects, manufacturing technologies domestically, increasing U.S. competitiveness, making our power grid stronger and more resilient to extreme weather, and all while creating high-quality, good-paying union jobs and lowering costs for Americans across the nation. Since President Biden took office, the federal government has provided funding to over 400 states, Tribes, and territories and launched over 100 projects to improve the resilience and reliability of America’s electric grid and deliver cheaper and cleaner electricity—representing the largest single investment in electric transmission and distribution infrastructure in the history of the United States. For example, the Joint Targeted Interconnection Queue Transmission Study Process and Portfolio (JTIQ) project is coordinating the comprehensive planning, design, and construction of five transmission projects across seven Midwest states. Projects are also strengthening the grid locally and helping communities like Estes Park, CO to power through future severe weather events by installing an innovative battery storage project.

• Resilience: Across the country, Americans are experiencing the devastating impacts of climate change. The Biden-Harris Administration has deployed $27.4 billion in funding towards an “all hazards” approach to protecting our infrastructure and communities from physical, climate, and cybersecurity-related threats. To date, the Biden-Harris Administration has launched over 6,000 projects to help communities proactively build resilience to these threats before disasters strike. That includes protecting communities from wildfires by removing hazardous fuels from nearly 18 million acres of land through the Infrastructure Law and other sources, as well as funding projects to elevate or relocate over 3,500 homes and buildings outside of the reach of floodwaters, and creating a record wildland firefighting workforce of 16,700 with boosted pay.

• Legacy Pollution: The Biden-Harris Administration is cleaning up the air, land, and water in communities that have been burdened by legacy pollution for far too long. Funding from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law has helped plug over 9,600 orphaned oil and gas wells that pollute communities with methane leaks. To date, the Administration has allocated funding to 95 previously unfunded Superfund site projects, including the longstanding backlog of projects, to clean up contaminated sites and advance environmental justice, leading to completed cleanups at 10 Superfund sites and 24 brownfield sites. For example, after decades of community advocacy, the Environmental Protection Agency has completed the cleanup of the Clearview Landfill Superfund project in Philadelphia’s Eastwick neighborhood, which will prevent toxins from leaching into the nearby Darby Creek.

DELIVERING PROJECTS QUICKLY AND EFFECTIVELY

To deliver on the promise of this historic legislation and deliver impact to communities and workers as soon as possible, the Biden-Harris Administration has:

• Accelerated Federal Permitting: President Biden has been clear that the government can and must deliver more projects, more quickly. Through his Investing in America Agenda, he is delivering on that promise by accelerating project reviews while protecting communities and our environment. The Biden-Harris Administration has taken historic steps to accelerate and improve the federal permitting process so that Americans across the country can benefit from the promise of the Investing in America agenda – including lowering energy costs for families and creating hundreds of thousands of good-paying and union jobs. The Administration has taken a three-prong approach. First, investing $1 billion through the Inflation Reduction Act funds to hire experts and invest in new technologies to expedite reviews. Second, passing the first reforms to modernize the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) for the first time in 50 years and finalizing the Bipartisan Permitting Reform Implementation Rule to accelerate the federal environmental review process. And third, using executive authorities, wherever possible, to improve permitting and environmental review processes. Thanks to these actions, the Biden-Harris administration has cut six months off the median time it takes for agencies to complete the most extensive form of environment review, cut the average time it takes to complete a Department of Transportation environmental assessment by more than one-third, and expanded use of the fastest form of environmental review – categorical exclusions. Since the start of the Administration, over 15 federal agencies have developed, expanded, or adopted 125 categorical exclusions for projects with insignificant environmental impact in key sectors such as electric vehicle charging, broadband, semiconductor manufacturing, clean energy, and transmission.

• Expanded Technical Assistance: In the past, too many communities have lacked the resources to access and deploy transformative Federal funding opportunities. The Biden-Harris Administration has made it a priority to help state, local, Tribal and territorial governments and other nongovernmental partners effectively navigate the historic funding provided through the Investing in America agenda. New technical assistance and capacity building programs like the Department of Transportation’s Thriving Communities, Environmental Protection Administration’s Get the Lead Out Initiative, and U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Rural Partners Network provide training, hands-on support, and expert assistance to communities across the country. The Administration has identified over 100 technical assistance programs to help would-be applicants with their planning and delivery needs—and has worked with philanthropy and civil society stakeholders to ensure that historically-underserved communities have the tools they need to take advantage of this historic opportunity.

Invested in Workforce: The Investing in America agenda is projected to create hundreds of thousands of good-paying and union jobs for years to come that provide critical benefits and supportive services – many of which do not require a four-year college degree. The Biden-Harris Administration is committed to ensuring that all workers—including women, people of color, veterans, and those that have been historically left behind–have equitable access to those job opportunities and the training and skills needed to fill them. The Administration has launched nine Investing in America Workforce Hubs in Augusta, Baltimore, Columbus, Michigan, Milwaukee, Philadelphia, Phoenix, Pittsburgh, and Upstate New York to build partnerships that train and connect Americans to these jobs in key sectors such as transportation, clean energy and manufacturing. In addition, the Administration has made unprecedented federal investments in these sectors. Since the President took office over $80 billion from President Biden’s American Rescue Plan have been committed to strengthen and expand the American workforce. These investments have bolstered Registered Apprenticeships resulting in the hiring of more than 1 million apprentices and deployed hundreds of millions of dollars to support for community college workforce training programs.

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NOMINATIONS SENT TO THE SENATE:

     Carol Kellermann, of New York, to be a Member of the Board of Directors of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting for a term expiring January 31, 2030, vice Kathy K. Im, term expired.

     Adam Jeffrey White, of Virginia, to be a Member of the Board of Directors of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting for a term expiring January 31, 2030, vice Janice Miriam Hellreich, term expired.

     Devin S. Anderson, of Utah, to be a Member of the Board of Directors of the State Justice Institute for a term expiring September 17, 2025, vice Marsha J. Rabiteau, term expired.

     Loida Nicolas Lewis, of New York, to be a Member of the Board of Directors of the Millennium Challenge Corporation for a term of three years, vice Alexander Crenshaw, term expired.


WITHDRAWALS SENT TO THE SENATE:

     Carl Whitney Bentzel, of Maryland, to be a Federal Maritime Commissioner for a term expiring June 30, 2029.  (Reappointment), which was sent to the Senate on July 11, 2024.

     Jennifer D. Gavito, of Colorado, a Career Member of the Senior Foreign Service, Class of Minister-Counselor, to be Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the United States of America to the State of Libya, which was sent to the Senate on January 8, 2024.

     Deva A. Kyle, of Virginia, to be Director of the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation for a term of five years, vice Gordon Hartogensis, term expired, which was sent to the Senate on July 11, 2024.

     Martin Joseph Walsh, of Massachusetts, to be a Governor of the United States Postal Service for a term expiring December 8, 2029, vice Donald Lee Moak, term expired, which was sent to the Senate on February 29, 2024.

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WASHINGTON – Today, President Joe Biden announced his intent to nominate the following individuals to serve as key leaders in his administration:

• Carol Kellermann, Nominee to be a Member of the Board of Directors of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting
• Loida Lewis, Nominee to be a Member of the Board of Directors of the Millennium Challenge Corporation

Additionally, President Biden announced his intent to nominate the following individuals to serve as Republican members of boards and commissions that are required, by statute or longstanding practice, to include bipartisan membership:

• Adam White, Nominee to be a Member (Republican) of the Board of Directors of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting
• Devin Anderson, Nominee to be a Member (Republican) of the Board of Directors of the State Justice Institute

Carol Kellermann, Nominee to be a Member of the Board of Directors of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting

An expert in launching, managing and turning around nonprofits, Carol Kellermann has guided large and small organizations through periods of significant growth and transformation. With deep experience in Washington, D.C. and New York, Kellermann has also advised leading elected officials and led the half-billion-dollar assistance program for victims of the September 11 terrorist attacks.

Most recently, Kellermann was President of the Citizens Budget Commission, the respected independent watchdog that recommends changes and improvements in the New York City and New York State government budgets and services. Following the 2001 terrorist attacks in New York City, she served as the CEO of The September 11 Fund, a $500 million fund created by charities and foundations to help victims of those attacks. Over two million donors contributed to the Fund. Earlier in her career, Kellermann was Chief of Staff to then-Congressman, now Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer. She held several positions in New York City government including as Deputy Commissioner of Finance and Special Assistant to the Commissioner of Housing Preservation and Development.  

Kellermann also led several nonprofits, including: Learning Leaders, the oldest school volunteer program in the country; The Leonard Stern Foundation, to help homeless families in New York City; and the Alliance for Young Artists & Writers, which recognizes artistically-talented teenagers. 

A graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Law School, she practiced law early in her career for the New York Legal Aid Society and Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP. She lives in New York City.  

Loida Lewis, Nominee to be a Member of the Board of Directors of the Millennium Challenge Corporation

Loida Lewis is Chair and CEO of TLC Beatrice, LLC, a family investment firm. A lawyer by profession, admitted to practice in the Philippines and New York, Lewis was the first Filipino woman to pass the New York bar without attending law school in the United States. When she won her discrimination case against the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service, she integrated the agency and worked as General Attorney in the New York Federal office from 1978 to 1988.

Lewis also served as Chair and CEO of TLC Beatrice International, a $2 billion multinational food company with operations across Europe, from 1994-2007. She assumed its leadership after the death of her husband, attorney and Wall Street financier Reginald F. Lewis, who in 1987 engineered a leveraged buyout for $985 million of Beatrice International Foods, thus becoming the first African American to acquire a billion-dollar company.

Lewis is Chair of the Reginald F. Lewis Foundation, which is a benefactor of Harvard Law School, the Museum of Maryland African American History & Culture, Virginia State University, and the Lewis College in Sorsogon, her hometown in the Philippines. Lewis is co-founder of several advocacy organizations: Asian American Legal Defense & Education Fund, National Federation of Filipino American Associations and U.S. Filipinos for Good Governance.

Lewis has two daughters and five grandchildren.

Adam White, Nominee to be a Member (Republican) of the Board of Directors of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting

Adam White is a Senior Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), where he holds the inaugural Laurence Silberman Chair in Constitutional Governance. He is part of AEI’s “America at 250” initiative, a multi-year program bringing scholars together to write and speak on the American founding. He also directs the C. Boyden Gray Center for the Study of the Administrative State at George Mason University’s Antonin Scalia Law School.

In 2021, President Biden appointed him to the Presidential Commission on the Supreme Court of the United States; he also is a Senior Fellow at the Administrative Conference of the United States, a federal advisory body. He has served on the boards of directors of various nonprofits focused on conservation, free speech, and the rule of law. Previously he practiced law at Baker Botts LLP and at Boyden Gray & Associates; he clerked for Judge David Sentelle on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit; and he was a Research Fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution.

Born in Dubuque, Iowa, he graduated from Wahlert High School, the University of Iowa, and Harvard Law School. He and his wife Liz are raising their family in Loudoun County, VA.

Devin Anderson, Nominee to be a Member (Republican) of the State Justice Institute

Devin Anderson is a litigation partner at Kirkland & Ellis LLP in Salt Lake City, Utah, where he works on trial and appellate litigation, with an emphasis on cybersecurity and class actions.

Raised in Mesa, Arizona, Anderson attended Mesa High School. Anderson served a two-year mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Rostov-na-Donu, Russia. He then graduated magna cum laude from Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, with a double major in Economics and Russian. He became interested in the law and attended The George Washington University Law School in Washington, D.C., where he graduated with highest honors. Following graduation, Anderson clerked for Judge G. Murray Snow on the U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona in Phoenix, Arizona, and then for Judge Sandra Ikuta on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in Pasadena, California. He then began practicing with Kirkland & Ellis, first in Kirkland’s Washington, D.C. office, and then Anderson helped to open Kirkland’s Salt Lake City office in late 2021.

Anderson resides in the Salt Lake area with his wife Marian, who is a speech-language pathologist, and his three children: Claire, Caleb, and Emma.

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Small businesses are the backbone of our communities. They strengthen the middle class by creating jobs and advancing opportunity. That is why President Biden and I have spent every day of our Administration fighting to invest in America’s small businesses, their owners and entrepreneurs, and the workers who power them.

Today, I am proud to celebrate that a record 20 million new small business applications have been filed since we took office. This milestone comes as our Administration is investing billions of dollars in community lenders that provide capital and financial support to small business owners and entrepreneurs in overlooked and underserved communities. Our efforts are working with record small business creation from communities that are traditionally underrepresented in entrepreneurship.

President Biden and I will continue to invest in small business owners and entrepreneurs in communities across our nation, ensuring they have the resources to not only survive but thrive. 

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The Biden-Harris Administration has powered a small business boom, overseeing record growth and support for small businesses across the country

Since President Biden and Vice President Harris took office, American entrepreneurs have filed over 20 million new business applications, the most in any single Presidential term in history. Under the Biden-Harris Administration, we have had the first, second, and third strongest years of new business applications on record, and are on track for a fourth. This is happening in communities across the country—with the most new business applications in a single Presidential term in every state. Each new business is an act of hope and confidence in the economy, and each of these applications marks the first step in that journey. Over the last four years, entrepreneurs have filed an average of over 440,000 applications every month, a rate over 90% faster than pre-pandemic averages.

The Biden-Harris Administration has powered a small business boom across the country. Business ownership has doubled among Black households and hit a 30-year high for Hispanic households; new business creation rates hit a 30-year high for Asian Americans; and women own a higher share of businesses than before the pandemic. While the Biden-Harris Administration has invested in small businesses that lift communities in every corner of the country—rural, urban, and everywhere in between— Congressional Republicans have repeatedly tried to cut SBA’s funding by nearly a third and want to raise taxes and costs for small businesses.

Today’s announcement builds on significant actions taken by the Biden Administration to support small businesses, including:

• Record levels of capital through the Small Business Administration. In Fiscal Year (FY) 2024, the SBA backed an historic $56 billion in capital to small businesses and disaster impacted communities, providing over 100,000 financings in the forms of loans, investments, and surety bond guarantees to small businesses. Compared to FY20, the SBA tripled its lending to Black-owned business, doubled lending to Latino-owned and women-owned small businesses, and significantly increased lending to businesses owned by Native, Veteran, and rural entrepreneurs. The SBA also prioritized increasing access to small dollar loans, doubling the number of loans under $150,000.

• Lowering costs for small businesses through the Investing in America agenda. The Inflation Reduction Act included a number of provisions that have saved small business owners money. These laws created a tax credit to cover 30% of the cost of switching to solar power, allowed small businesses to deduct up to $1.00 per square foot of their business for making high energy efficiency upgrades, and lowered health care costs that saddle small business owner’s budgets by capping out-of-pocket prescription drugs costs for seniors at $2,000, capping the cost of insulin for seniors at $35 a month, and preserving the American Rescue Plan’s premium tax credit supports for the Affordable Care Act—saving millions of small business owners and self-employed workers an average of $700 per year on their health insurance premiums.

• Expanding access to capital across the country through the State Small Business Credit Initiative (SSBCI). Through SSBCI, the American Rescue Plan is providing nearly $10 billion to support small business loan and venture capital programs implemented by states, territories, and Tribal governments across the country. Through 2023, SSBCI funds had already catalyzed $3.1 billion in public and private financing for small businesses. Further, SSBCI funds have already supported $1.2 billion in venture capital financing and it is expected that jurisdictions may support as many as 200 investment funds over the course of the SSBCI program. In addition, SSBCI support targets underserved and very small businesses. Through December 2023, 75% of transactions supported underserved businesses and 78% supported business with fewer than 10 employees.

• Awarding record federal contracts to small businesses. The federal government is the world’s largest purchaser of goods and services, giving it an important role in creating opportunities for entrepreneurs. In FY23, federal agencies awarded a record $178.6 billion in federal contracts to small businesses—representing 28.4% of all eligible federal contracting dollars. These federal contract awards enable small business growth, supporting more than one million jobs in manufacturing, construction, defense, and other core industries. Federal agencies also awarded a record $76.2 billion to small disadvantaged businesses.

• Supporting entrepreneurs through hands-on assistance and services to help them successfully access capital and grow and scale their businesses. In addition to providing access to capital and contracting opportunities, federal agencies also provided significant hands-on services and assistance to ensure that small businesses had the support they needed to capitalize on federal supports and access the broader market. Building on longstanding SBA assistance programs provided through their Regional Field Offices, Small Business Development Centers, Veteran’s Business Outreach Centers, Women’s Business Centers, and SCORE small business mentoring, the American Rescue Plan included the largest-ever dedicated federal investment in navigator services for small businesses through the Small Business Community Navigators Pilot Program, delivering training to over 350,000 entrepreneurs and 1:1 counseling services to over 33,000 small business owners. It also included the largest-ever direct Federal investment in small business incubators and accelerators through the Minority Business Development Agency’s Capital Readiness Program. And through Treasury’s SSBCI technical assistance grants and Small Business Opportunity Program awards, the Federal government is leveraging local and non-profit partners to ensure entrepreneurs can get the support they need regardless of where they live.

• Catalyzing small business growth and investments in industries of the future. The-Biden-Harris Administration’s historic investments in clean energy, infrastructure, innovation, and manufacturing have also boosted small businesses. The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law will continue to provide support for and lower costs for small businesses by reducing shipping delays caused by aging infrastructure, increasing access to customers by expanding high-speed internet coverage, and leveraging small business contractors to complete critical projects for the Federal Highway Administration, Federal Transit Administration, and National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. The CHIPS and Science Act also provides $54 million in funding to small business to help them explore and participate in the commercial microelectronics marketplace. The Inflation Reduction Act builds on these direct investments, providing tax credits and incentives to support small business involvement in the green energy transition, including by making it cheaper for small businesses to use and supply clean fuels, solar panels, commercial clean vehicles, and other green products.

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I’ve always said that every new small business is an act of hope. As of today, Americans have filed more than 20 million new business applications since Vice President Harris and I took office. That’s 20 million acts of hope by the American people.

Under our Administration, we have had the three strongest years of new business applications on record—and we are on track for a fourth. That’s the best single Presidential term for new business applications in history. Black and Hispanic entrepreneurs have been leaders of this small business boom, with Black business ownership doubling and Hispanic business ownership up by 40% since before the pandemic. The share of women business owners is also on the rise.

Small businesses and entrepreneurs are powering our economic recovery and contributing to stronger productivity growth—helping make us the strongest economy in the world.

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