Agosto / Setembro 2019

41st United States – Portugal Standing Bilateral Commission

September 11, 2019, Washington D.C.

 

1. The United States – Portugal Standing Bilateral Commission (SBC) held its 41st session on September 11, 2019, in Washington, D.C., to discuss developments in the bilateral relationship and to explore opportunities to renew and further strengthen the capacity of this longstanding Transatlantic partnership to address critical matters of mutual concern in the international community. The group observed a moment of silence to remember the victims of terrorism.

2. The SBC highlighted the partnership between the United States and Portugal, underscoring the shared norms and values that underpin the special ties between our countries and citizens. Highlighting the importance of this relationship, the SBC noted the visits of many high-level officials from the United States to Portugal since the previous SBC meeting; including those of Under Secretary of State for Management Brian Bulatao, Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Tibor Nagy, Assistant Secretary of State for Consular Affairs Carl Risch, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai, Special Representative for Venezuela Elliott Abrams, Assistant Secretary of State for Intelligence and Research Ellen McCarthy, Acting Assistant Secretary of Defense Kathryn Wheelbarger, and several senior military commanders.  The SBC noted the June 2019 meeting of Portuguese Minister of National Defense João Gomes Cravinho with the then Acting Secretary of Defense of the United States in Washington.  The SBC lauded the positive contribution to bilateral trade provided by events such as the U.S. investment forum in Porto organized in conjunction with local trade associations that connected representatives from U.S. states and local businesses.  The SBC recognized the importance of increased cultural exchanges between the two countries and welcomed the efforts of the United States as the Country of Honor in the 2019 edition of the Terras Sem Sombra festival.

3. The SBC lauded the close security and defense cooperation between the two countries on areas of national and global concern. An array of government experts on both sides led fruitful discussions about our shared national, regional, and global security concerns; U.S and Portuguese contributions to multinational, UN, and NATO operations; emerging cyber and hybrid security threats; energy security; and other current global challenges.

4. On energy security, the United States highlighted the strategic nature of the Port of Sines as a recipient of U.S. liquefied natural gas (LNG), as well as the interest of the United States in seeing U.S. investment in the planned Vasco da Gama container terminal. Portugal emphasized energy diversification as a priority for Europe and welcomed the U.S. interest in strengthening cooperation in the field of LNG and in the future Vasco da Gama container terminal.

5. The United States and Portugal highly value the Transatlantic partnership and reiterated the vital role of NATO and the importance of all NATO Allies fulfilling their commitments under the Wales Defense Investment Pledge to invest at least two percent of GDP in defense and twenty percent of defense spending on capability procurement. Portugal updated the SBC on its national plan to increase defense spending and meet the Wales Pledge by 2024.

6. The United States emphasized its strong commitment to cooperation with the Azores. This September marks six years of operation and collaboration at the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) climate research facility on Graciosa Island.  A National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) research mission visited the Capelinhos volcano site in July, and an economic and agricultural mission visited Ponta Delgada in April, among other outreach.  Portugal expressed its desire for enhanced involvement by the United States in the development of initiatives in the area of tourism, external investment in the Region, agricultural exports, space, and the Terceira Tech Island project, among others.

7. The Technical and Labor Committees reported on their most recent discussions and their respective activities to resolve issues of mutual concern at Lajes Air Field.

8. The SBC received a briefing on the environmental issues related to the U.S. presence at Lajes Air Field, with a specific focus on Site 3001. Both sides committed to explore possibilities for prompt and effective action towards the resolution of the environmental situation at sites 3001 and 5001.  Portugal also recalled the situation at the other sites and welcomed, in this regard, the constructive discussion held at the 57th meeting of the Technical Committee.  The SBC supported the continued exchange of information and encouraged full transparency and information to the public about these issues.

9. Portugal and the United States stressed the strategic importance of Lajes Air Base to global security. The SBC recalled the substantial progress achieved over the last years in all areas related to Lajes and reiterated its commitment to continue consultations in a forward-looking and results- oriented manner.  With this spirit in mind, both sides should consider ways of making further progress on the remaining issues as soon as possible.

10. The SBC discussed several issues of mutual concern in the global political arena, including increasing coordination between the United States and Portugal on issues in Africa and leveraging Portugal’s ties with Lusophone Africa. The SBC welcomed the August 6 signing of the Peace and National Reconciliation Agreement in Mozambique and the economic and political reforms being undertaken by President João Lourenço in Angola.

11. The SBC underscored the importance of a free, fair, non-discriminatory, transparent, predictable, and stable trade and investment environment, and of pushing back against unfair practices, including forced intellectual property (IP) transfer and theft, as well as addressing major global economic challenges in order to allow companies to operate on a level playing field. The SBC underscored the importance of vigilance concerning investments in critical infrastructure by state-owned companies. The United States and Portugal stressed the importance of protecting sensitive technology and intellectual property, noted that fifth-generation wireless communications networks (5G) are vital to long-term prosperity and national security, and discussed the importance of ensuring a secure and vibrant 5G environment.

12. Finally, the SBC discussed the suffering of the Venezuelan people and welcomed the commitment by the United States and Portugal to continue working together to help Venezuela achieve democracy, economic stability, and an end to the current crisis. The United States and Portugal reiterated their aligned positions on the legitimacy of the National Assembly and Interim President Juan Guaidó, against the Maduro regime’s human rights abuses and interference by foreign powers seeking to maintain that regime, and the imperative for international humanitarian aid to be unencumbered by political interference so that it can reach Venezuelans in need.

13. David Kless, Executive Director for Logistics Operation at the Defense Logistics Agency, and Alberto Coelho, the Director-General of National Defense Resources, signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) concerning reciprocal cataloging services. This MOU improves U.S.-Portuguese codification services and strengthens bilateral logistics interoperability.

14. The SBC decided to hold a next meeting in Portugal in December.

 

 

 By U.S. Mission Portugal | 11 September, 2019 

Exchange Program between U.S. and Portuguese Naval Academies

In 2015 the Superintendents (Directors) of the U.S. Naval Academy and Escola Naval established a cooperative engagement and investment in the future leaders of our two navies by establishing a semester exchange program. Each fall semester, two students from each naval academy participates in this exchange program.  For the U.S. Naval Academy, this also includes embarking on the Portuguese Navy Tall Ship, Sagres as part of the professional orientation.

Tiago António Gonçalves and Luis Nobre Serodio are representing Portugal this year in this prestigious exchange program. Working #SidebySide along with 4,400 colleagues Tiago and Luís will be immersing themselves in a rigorous academic program while integrating into the leadership of their assigned company of 150 midshipmen and further their understanding of how leaders are developed.

 

By U.S. Mission Portugal | 21 August, 2019

Release of the 2019 Fiscal Transparency Report

The U.S. State Department released the 2019 Fiscal Transparency Report on August 15, 2019.

 

Fiscal transparency informs citizens how government revenues and tax revenues are spent and is a critical element of effective public financial management.  Transparency provides citizens a window into government budgets and helps hold governments accountable.  It helps build market confidence and sustainability.  The Congressionally mandated Fiscal Transparency Report (FTR) is a tool to identify deficiencies and support needed changes.  The Office of Monetary Affairs (OMA) of State’s Bureau of Economic and Business Affairs (EB) prepares the annual FTR in consultation with State’s Bureau of Energy Resources (ENR) and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).

As directed by Congress, EB/OMA evaluates data on the fiscal transparency collected by our posts in 141 countries (those that could receive U.S. foreign assistance) against minimum requirements and publishes the results on the Department’s website annually.  For countries to meet minimum requirements, governments must make key budget documents publicly available within a reasonable period of time.  They must be substantially complete and generally reliable.  Governments must also follow a transparent process for awarding government contracts for natural resource extraction.  In the report released in August 2019, 74 countries met minimum requirements and 67 did not.  Additionally, the FTR identified 13 countries that made significant progress towards meeting requirements.

 

By U.S. Mission Portugal | 16 August, 2019

Assistant Secretary for Consular Affairs in Lisbon

On July 18, Carl C. Risch became the first Assistant Secretary for Consular Affairs to visit Portugal.  During his trip, Assistant Secretary Risch met with officials from Serviço de Estrangeiros e Fronteiras (SEF) and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to discuss bilateral cooperation on Consular issues and to express his appreciation for the strong partnership between our two countries.

Assistant Secretary Risch met with SEF Director, Dr. Cristina Gatoes, to discuss immigration and border control cooperation between the United States and Portugal.  Assistant Secretary Risch expressed his appreciation for the excellent working relationship.

Ambassador Glass and Assistant Secretary Risch also met with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ Director General of Consular Affairs, Julio Vilela, and Deputy Director of Consular Affairs, Maria Jose Carujo, to discuss Consular cooperation supporting American and Portuguese citizens abroad.

Assistant Secretary Risch made time during his visit to talk to Lisbon’s Consular staff and thank them for their service.  As tourism, business partnerships, and cultural exchanges have increased between the United States and Portugal, so too has the demand for Consular services.

 

By U.S. Mission Portugal | 18 July, 2019

Catherine Havasi MIT AI Scientist in Portugal

The U.S. Embassy invited Dr. Catherine Havasi to Portugal for a series of lectures on “Practical Natural Language Processing.” Dr. Havasi, a technology strategist, AI researcher, and entrepreneur, currently serves as a visiting scientist at the MIT Media Lab.

Her work at MIT has spanned the fields of computational creativity, transfer and meta learning, natural language understanding, and educational outreach, resulting in several spinout companies: Dalang, Luminoso, and Learning Unlimited. In the late 90s, she was a crowdsourcing pioneer when she co-founded the Open Mind Common Sense Project, the first crowd-sourced project for artificial intelligence, whose data led to the creation of ConceptNet, an open source and multilingual knowledge graph for language understanding. She previously directed the Digital Intuition group at the MIT Media Lab under a prior appointment. She also runs the AI strategy consulting firm Snowcap AI helping companies go to market and come up with innovation strategy around artificial intelligence.

During the week-long program, Dr. Havasi engaged with high school students, university students, professors, and researchers in Lisbon, Almada, Minho, Porto, and Ponta Delgada. She also engaged with government officials and business leaders to promote greater awareness and cooperation between Portugal and the United States in the area of natural language processing and artificial intelligence. This visit was an opportunity to promote mutual prosperity by encouraging relations between entities in the United States and Portugal in the areas of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM).

 

By U.S. Mission Portugal | 11 July, 2019 

On the Occasion of Portugal’s National Day

Michael R. Pompeo
Secretary of State

June 10, 2019

On behalf of the American people, I extend my best wishes to the people of Portugal on your national day.

Over one million Americans can trace their roots back to Portugal, and our countries share strong and longstanding bonds of friendship and alliance.  President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa’s visit to the United States and meeting with President Trump in June 2018 continued our tradition of close and fruitful bilateral relations, which dates back to Portugal’s diplomatic recognition of the United States in 1791.  Portugal is a valued partner, friend, and NATO Ally.  We work together closely to promote our cultural and historical ties, enhance our shared prosperity, and ensure our joint security.

We look forward to a future of continued friendship and close cooperation with Portugal.

 

By U.S. Mission Portugal | 10 June, 2019

100 Years of History — An Atlantic Friendship

The first transatlantic flight, in May 1919, linked the United States of America and the Azores in the annals of history.  This weekend we celebrated this historic landmark in both Horta and Ponta Delgada.

Deputy Chief of Mission Herro Mustafa participated in the centennial celebration of the first transatlantic flight by Albert Cushing Read. Events were organized by the City Council of Horta on May 17.  Ms. Mustafa was accompanied by U.S. Consul to the Azores Jason Chue and U.S. Embassy Defense Attaché Colonel Andrew Bernard.

After rousing performances of the “March of the NC-4,” named after the airplane that completed the crossing, and the national anthems of the United States and Portugal by the local musical group Sociedade Filarmónica Unânime Praiense, Horta MayorJosé Leonardo Silva presided over a formal ceremony that included speeches by Minister-Counselor Mustafa and Regional Secretary Gui Menezes, representing the President of the Regional Government of the Azores.  Ms. Mustafa highlighted the long friendly relationship that binds Faial, the Azores, and the United States, including many unique historical milestones, such as the original U.S. Consulate in Horta, the Dabney family, and the Azorean Refugee Act, which allowed thousands of Faial’s residents to emigrate to the United States following the eruption of the Capelinhos Volcano.

The Portuguese post office, Correios de Portugal, also unveiled a postage seal commemorating the event.  At the conclusion of the ceremony, Dr. Carlos Guilherme Riley delivered a presentation on “The First Aerial Crossing of the Atlantic as seen from the Azores.”

The next day at the Teatro Faialense, the U.S. Air Force band Winds Aloft performed to a full house. This marquis musical ensemble is based at the U.S. Air Forces in Europe.  After Horta they traveled on to Ponta Delgada for another concert on May 19 at City Hall.

On May 20, Ponta Delgada hosted a conference titled “The Azores: Scale of the First Transatlantic Air Crossing 1919-2019.” The event was organized by the Azorean Institute of Culture and included a presentation by retired U.S. Air Force Commander John P. Cann.

The U.S. Consulate to the Acores thanks its partners for their cooperation and friendship: PontaDelgada City Hall, Horta City Hall, and Azorean Institute of Culture.

 

By U.S. Mission Portugal | 20 May, 2019