SECRETARY BLINKEN: (Applause.) Buenas tardes. Good afternoon, everyone. And thank you so much for remaining here. I understand I'm the only thing standing between most of you and a pisco sour, so I'm grateful to you. (Laughter.) And I especially want to thank all of our Peruvian friends for their incredibly warm welcome, and also for nearly 200 years of diplomatic partnership, and of course for hosting this important summit for the third time.
I also want to thank the business leaders who are here today and who every day continue to innovate and invest in your communities. Your efforts - alongside those of workers, civil society, and others - these efforts have been, and they will continue to be the ultimate source of this region's dynamism and the driver of its progress.
And I want to congratulate the National Center for APEC on 30 years now of bringing together government and private sector leaders across the Asia-Pacific to work together to tackle challenges, to promote growth.
When President Biden took office four years ago, the APEC Leaders Retreat was held virtually. COVID had upended all of our economies. Global supply chains were breaking down. Powerful forces - from automation to algorithms to artificial intelligence - were transforming lives and livelihoods. And, of course, the climate crisis was accelerating, with more frequent and intense hurricanes, droughts, wildfires, and other shocks.
It was a moment that required a fundamental rebalancing of our approach to economic and technological interdependence - to ensure that it was a source of strength, not vulnerability.
To harness the benefits and promise of openness and innovation, while being more attentive to dislocation and risks - from inequality to climate and environmental concerns, to the disruption of strategically vital resources like critical minerals.
So, in the United States we started by making historic investments in our own competitiveness.
With bipartisan support, we passed landmark legislation to upgrade infrastructure, to bolster 21st century industries and technologies, to recharge America's manufacturing base, to boost research, to lead the global energy transition.
At the same time, around the world, we reimagined, we re-energized, we revitalized, we strengthened, and we wove together our alliances and partnerships in new ways to try to advance an increasingly shared vision for a future that's more free, more open, more secure, more prosperous, more resilient, more connected.
Here in the Asia-Pacific, we've bolstered trilateral cooperation with Japan and Korea.
We deepened ties with the Quad - India, Japan, and Australia - and ASEAN.
We've elevated our relationships with Vietnam and Indonesia.
We launched the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework, bringing together 14 countries - some 40 percent of the world's GDP - to build more secure supply chains, to combat corruption, to transition to clean energy.
We've stepped up our engagement with APEC, including welcoming many of you to San Francisco last year, where we secured important new commitments toward creating a more resilient and sustainable future for all of us, like strengthening our food systems, increasing women's economic participation. And by the way, if we got to the point where we had equal participation by women in the global workforce, we would add as much as $28 trillion to our collective GDP. Imagine what we could do with those resources.
Now we're standing up the APEC-RISE program - with an initial $4 million investment - to continue to advance the United States host year priorities.
In the Western Hemisphere, our Americas Partnership for Economic Prosperity has come together to deepen economic integration, to focus on tackling inequality, to try to deliver better for workers across our region.
A dozen nations - including Peru - have already joined this effort, which is designed to welcome even more countries in the years ahead.
We've also made new investments in high-quality, environmentally sound infrastructure through our Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment. Ultimately, this partnership will unlock $600 billion in private capital to fund world-class, sustainable projects.
Just to give you one example, earlier this year, the United States, the Philippines, and Japan came together and announced the Luzon Economic Corridor to construct rails and ports that will link high-impact economic areas across the Philippines - including agribusiness and chip manufacturing hubs.
And we joined Japan, Australia, and other partners to launch the Blue Dot Network, to promote high-standard investments that support - instead of exploit - the communities and countries where projects are established.
The Asia-Pacific leads the world, as you all know, in developing and deploying semiconductors, artificial intelligence, clean energy, and other innovations that are shaping our future. We've worked to build a more trusted, a more inclusive, a more resilient, a more sustainable technology ecosystem.
Through the bipartisan CHIPS and Science Act, we set up a fund to support our partners - from Vietnam to Mexico to Kenya - as they develop their capacity to assemble, to test, and to package semiconductors.
We teamed up with Australia, with Japan, with New Zealand, and Chinese Taipei to install undersea cables that will extend digital access to 100,000 people across the Pacific Islands.
And we've seen how this shared vision and how advancing it can benefit people in the United States and all across the region.
As of 2021, American businesses were already - had already poured over $1.4 trillion into APEC economies, making the United States the largest source of foreign direct investment within APEC.
Meanwhile, APEC economies have invested $1.7 trillion in the United States - from clean energy to semiconductors - supporting 2.3 million American jobs.
These numbers are growing every day. They've grown every year since, they're growing every day, and I think they tell an incredibly important story, and maybe one that we don't tell often enough. Foreign direct investment may be the best measure of trust and confidence in the future. The private sector is not going to put its money on the table without that trust and confidence. I am very proud that we've made the United States the leading recipient - and the leading provider - of foreign direct investment in the world.
Now, right here in Peru, bilateral trade has grown 130 percent since the signing of the U.S.-Peru Trade Promotion Agreement, from $9.1 billion in 2009 to over $21 billion last year. Peru's exports to the United States, including from more than 1,500 small and medium-sized businesses, supported over 1.1 million Peruvian jobs last year - the highest generated by any of Peru's trading partners.
We've also demonstrated that promoting prosperity and protecting our environment can go hand in hand. Thanks to the Inflation Reduction Act, we've made the largest-ever investment in clean energy anyplace, anytime in the world.
We've quadrupled climate financing to developing nations. We've helped more than half a billion people manage the effects of climate change.
Through the Just Energy Transition Initiative that APEC just stood up, we're working to ensure that more communities get the resources and tools that they need to mitigate and adapt to the climate crisis.
We've also worked to include underserved, underrepresented communities - like women and girls, like indigenous communities, like workers in the informal economy.
We're grateful to groups like the APEC Business Advisory Council for prioritizing this work and challenging governments and the private sector alike to do more to expand opportunity.
Not only because it's the right thing to do, but because our region, our economies are stronger and they're more stable when we unlock the potential of all of our people.
And ultimately, that's what all of this comes down to: our people. Their needs. Their aspirations.
And that's where you come in.
Your engagement - your leadership - will determine whether we can continue to move toward a stronger, more prosperous, more equitable, more resilient region.
And we can see that in the company that's re-training and upskilling technology workers across the Asia-Pacific.
We can see it in the mining company that partners with its union to invest in delivering clean water to remote communities.
We can see it in the entrepreneur whose innovation enables goods to be transported throughout the region more efficiently and with fewer carbon emissions.
Now, whether you're a Fortune 500 company or a small business, my request to you is simple: Please stay engaged.
