Tim Kaine: “I rise to seek consent to advance the nomination of a Virginian and friend, Leopoldo Martinez, to be Executive Director…”

“I rise to seek consent to advance the nomination of a Virginian and friend, Leopoldo Martinez, to be Executive Director of the Inter-American Development Bank. The IDB is the largest source of development financing for Latin America and the Caribbean. It is a critical part of the ability of the United States to engage diplomatically with our American partners to counter a growing influence of Russia and China and Iran and other nations in the Americas. And it is very much in the national interest of the United States to build up economic prosperity of countries in the Western Hemisphere. We have seen over and over that when countries have troubled economies, it is not a distant or faraway problem. It drives government corruption; it drives organized crime; it drives drug abuse and drug trafficking. And then it expands migration that could start as a country's problems but very quickly become our country's problems as well. When we don't step up, we see that other nations--China and Russia, in particular--in the Americas fill the vacuum. As Latin America and the Caribbean countries continue to face challenges from the COVID-19 pandemic--where the region has had the highest global per capita infection and death rates in the world and is experiencing the largest economic contraction of any region in the world--the IDB has a key role to play in improving economic outcomes for the region. But the problem is the IDB is without an executive director.…”