High-level U.S. Government Officials Visit Belize

Daniel Erikson

A high-level delegation of the United States government is in Belize to meet with Prime Minister John Briceño and members of his administration. Border security, transnational crime and migration are among the issues being discussed during their visit. It is rare to have a delegation composed of representatives from the Office of the Vice President, State Department, Department of Defense and the USAID travel together to visit any one country. This morning, the delegation held a press briefing inside the U.S Embassy in Belmopan where, Daniel Erikson, the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense in the U.S Government spoke about the importance of this visit.

Daniel Erikson, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense, U.S. Government 

“It’s very rare that a delegation composed of the different elements of the U. S. government, including Office of the Vice President, State Department,  USAID, and Department of Defense, would travel to a country together for high level meetings. And it demonstrates the importance that we do give to the U. S. Belize relationship. During the visit, we’ve had the opportunity to meet with various senior figures in the Belizean government, including the Prime Minister, the Foreign Minister, the Home Minister, the National Security Advisor and other elements that manage economic policy and security policy of Belize. From the perspective of the Department of Defense, we recognize the important role that Belize plays both as a member of the countries of Central America,  but as a member of the Caribbean community as well. And we really do recognize Belize’s leadership in the region. We’re also very appreciative of the steps that Belize is taking to address climate change. This is an important issue for the Department of Defense as well. And we do want to work with Belize to strengthen its capacities for humanitarian assistance and disaster response. We also recognize the challenges that are posed by transnational criminal organizations. We had an opportunity to review border security and look at some of the initiatives that we can take there, including a visit we conducted to the Joint Intelligence Operations Center, which helps to provide air domain awareness in Belize as well as a  visit to the air wing  where we got to also see the Cessna that was donated recently, which allows Belize to have greater  knowledge and domain awareness over its airspace.”