All of these are on the agenda of the United States southern community. I am the director of the more womens, more Power Initiative and im joined by my colleague, the director of the project. We are delighted to welcome general laura richardson, the commander of the United StatesSouthern Command to talk about her perspective on whats happening down south. General richardson is an army aviator flying blackhawk helicopters. She has trained soldiers, she has deployed into iraq and afghanistan in combat. She seen policymaking at the highest level of the white house and understands the role of congress. I was fortunate to meet her, first while in a key role of legislative liaison or she built relationships with members of congress to establish policy and importantly, fund the army. I also got to meet her again during her deployment to afghanistan. Where i saw her lead in a very complex and challenging security environment. I can think of no better leader than general richardson to tackle these tough issues and strengthen our look our relationships in the region. It is really a privilege to have you today. Gen. Richardson thank you very much, it is my honor to be here and to be able to talk about the great opportunities that we have in the western hemisphere. Talk to you about what this region has to offer, the great partners that we have, and the work that we dohe work that we do with our allies in the region and just be able to share some of that, but also the security challenges. I think if we partner Better Together and bring the entire whole of government together to bear, as they say, with all the infirm instruments of National Power for team usa, that we have a great shop at promoting and continuing to be at the forefront with Team Democracy in the western hemisphere. Western hemisphere. To start our conversation, we would like to get a sense of peoples origin stories. What inspired you to go into the military and what over the years inspires you to stay in the military with this extraordinary career . I think my parents have a lot to do with me joining in the first place. I was an athlete growing up and all of us kids were the oldest of four. Athletics was part of our life from being small kids. That translated nicely into the military but then also i had an aspiration for flying and was able to go into rotc and advance that by being commissioned into the Aviation Branch of the army, so what an opportunity. You cannot make it up, what you get to do in the military, and that is what i like to talk about, the great things you get to do, because i could not have picked what the army has provided for me and allowed me to be able to do but to be able to be a helicopter pilot, to be able to go and travel the world, go everywhere, and you have seen great things and you see where you can help where things are not so great in other countries and things like that. As i talk about Team Democracy, you will be able to help with that, and that is whats so powerful. Its the soft power about Team Democracy and what that means for our globe and i think its hugely important right now. The contest with authoritarian actors and the stakes are becoming so clear. I guess that leads me to my next question. What what is, for the benefit of our viewers, what are your priorities . How are you interacting with the region and what do you see as priorities for moving forward . This region is there are so many things that come to mind, but it is very powerful, and in our National Security strategy from President Biden, in this hemisphere, theres no other hemisphere that is inextricably linked to our homeland like the western hemisphere, and the importance of the region cannot be overstated enough. The proximity, number one, but all of the resources. Its very rich in natural resources, rare earth elements, climate. You talk about the amazon. Eight countries have the amazon. Lungs of the world, which i dont think we appreciate fully, and also, in colombia, talking about where we and this is something that a wise person told me while i was there, you know, we need to start respecting Mother Nature as not someone below us but on par with us or a higher being because of the amazon disappears as it will affect all of us. Rare earth elements. Lithium triangle. 60 of the worlds lithium is in this region. Gold, copper. We have seen significant illegal mining and deforestation. All these criminal elements are happening this region happening in this region. We work with our partners and allies and partners and partners and allies throughout our National Security strategy and defense strategy, working with our allies and partners. We do nothing alone. We do it as partners. I talk about Team Democracy, because as we think about the 28 likeminded democracies in the region partnering together, that is our strongest defense against malign activity in the region. If i can dive into that a bit further and ask you to talk more about what that strategic environment looks like in your area of responsibility, the key focus in our strategy now is a strategic competition with china. We tend to think of that as an indopacific regional challenge but china has global range. So what are you seeing . Thanks for that. It is absolutely global and right under our nose and closeddoor homeland. I would like to say with the prc say what the prc is doing looks to be investment but i would call it extraction at the end of the day. I would say its in the red zone, to use an analogy there. They are on the 20 yard line to our homeland or on the first and Second Island chain and the proximity in terms of this region and the importance of it, i think we have to truly appreciate, what the region brings and the security challenges these countries face. China has been at the top of the list as a pacing challenge or an adversary to the country. Talk about and educate and inform our partners in terms of what i see from u. S. Southern command, because i think we are in a unique position to be able to put together all the things that are happening in the region and be able to present that. Countries make their own decisions. There are for an and we respect that absolutely. They make their own decisions but i try to make sure they have all the facts because they are sometimes presented that because they are not always presented the facts because they are sometimes not presented all the facts. I see authoritarian regimes using democracy to get elected in using that position to dismantle democracy. And so we have to show how we align with the priorities. As nations go through democratic processes and changes, free and fair elections, if those are free and fair, we are going to figure out how we work with those administrations, and what we find, especially in the security realm, is a lot of things we do align with our new administrations priorities in the hemisphere so we have to explain that and show that, the advantages that has, but in terms of the Critical Infrastructure the prc is investing, its critical. When you look at that and present that, its in the deep water ports. Its in the globe, my hemisphere, my area of operations. 5g technology, five countries have the backbone for 5g from the prc, 25 3g or 4g, so what usually happens is they are offered almost a zero cost upgrade to the 5g and so it is hard for these leaders in the seat, usually one term of four years. They are working on a stopwatch, not a calendar, and we have to be able to have alternative methods, companies and options for them to be able to select the chinese competitors, and that is where we are getting outcompeted by the chinese now. That is a playbook we are seeing in the rest of the world, so thanks for highlighting that in the latin american region, because it does not seem like we are paying enough attention to that. You hit on something on space that i would like to get to as i lead the Aerospace Security team here. He returned from a trip you returned from a trip to south america with the nasa administration. Space is another area of that competition we are in with china. What was the purpose of your trip, what reflections do you take back with you, and how is your and nelsons message received . I think it was a game changer for me. It was such a great opportunity for administrator nelson to travel in the region. He has traveled as a senator and with other commanders before into the region and we spoke about that, but i invited him to the region about five months ago, and, when i was talking to him about the prc space enabling infrastructure already in hemisphere, there was more planned for that number to increase, and so he scheduled a trip, went to brazil. Brazil already signed up as a member of the artemis accords. He traveled to argentina, met with president fernandez. Argentina signed the artemis accords while he was there. I went to columbia and met the administrator in colombia for his visit. The country of colombia had signed the artemis accord. Being able to in terms of colombias case, all these countries have huge Space Programs and having our nasa administrator be able to come there and talk about more collaboration, what nasa is doing, what they are doing, how can we collaborate Better Together, we are only limited by the ideas we come up with of how we can collaborate Better Together, and thats part of what the power of Team Democracy brings and that is how we outcompete our adversaries, likeminded democracies working together on collaborative ideas to make things happen. In colombias case, one of the Top Priorities is Climate Change. They have a number of Different Things going on to help countries identify problems from space with agriculture, for example. And so as you think of the drought corridor in this region, you are talking about food insecurity, how can we change that . How can we change disease in crops, identify it . Deforestation, which impacts the amazon and the lungs of the world and being able to achieve Carbon Neutrality. Colombia and the u. S. Want to achieve being Carbon Neutral by 2050. How do you achieve this . From space, you can identify these things on the ground that are happening and help these countries counter the illegal mining from space, the illegal logging impacting the amazon. We also hope to see a project in we also came to see a project in colombia that was a collaboration to get after this. Five years that this program has been in place. Also there is colombias Aerospace Force operation center. And president petro renamed this to the colombian Aerospace Force. They dont have a commercials commercial Space Program yet in colombia. So obviously opportunities with nasa for a civilian space agency. And also administrator nelson offered to train as part of the program nasa has, train and put into space a colombian astronaut as part of the international program, so i think that would be available to brazil and argentina too because they were part of the artemis accords. Ripe for partnership. Exactly. Excited about them excited about that. Fentanyl is involved in an increasing number of deaths of americans over 50 and becoming a National Security concern. What is your assessment of activities to combat trafficking, including fentanyl . I think we have a great template for success and that is with our component command, our jitf, joint Interagency Task force south. We have over 16 coal of government, interagency 16 whole of government, interagency elements. I have a complement of about 16. When you get that synergy together to work there in operations we did the detection and monitoring of illicit traffic, Drug Trafficking heading to the United States, and we turn that information over to Law Enforcement and or partner nations and so our partner nations in the hemisphere are able to they are percentages of introductions and disruptions that have gone up this past year 76 . We can see it. They cannot see everything but if we can point to where theres activity and where they can make a finish on a Law Enforcement for a disruption or interdiction, they go after it, and so but i think we have the template for that. The fentanyl crisis and certainly in the hemisphere that i have cocaine. We cannot interdict our way out of this problem, though, so its important that we go after the money, all of those things that contribute, that whole of government process that follows the money, and they are able to go after the drug labs as well. Its important because if you are just getting the submersible that has some cocaine and marijuana on it, the thing is thats not going to step the problem. You have to go after the bigger things and that is exactly what we are doing. But we can also always use, with this great command we have, is be able to get after that problem. We have to continue to do that and build relationships to do that. Looking forward, in addition to, you know, looking at the upstream effect or actors and getting at the bigger sources of financing, where do you think, in addition to that, south, to be prioritizing its efforts when it comes to narco trafficking in countering narcotics . I think continuing to partner with our partner nations, being able to expand our reach, being able to identify barriers to outcompete amongst the interagency and the whole of government and being able to bring those things that are needed to change, i think that that when you are the tip of the spear, it is important. As you both know, to inform our congress, if there are barriers to outcompete, to keep us from achieving things or the Interagency Team being able to do that or Team Democracy, its important to identify those barriers to outcompete, but being able to see innovative ideas to go out after Building Networks with lowcost, high return investment types of capabilities that are out there, that is why i try to speak to industry as well because with the technology thats being developed today there are a lot of things with ai and ml you are able to utilize that helps you put these networks together and be able to counter them whether through team usa or Team Democracy with our partner nations. Given your background working in afghanistan, are you bringing some of those Lessons Learned or those insights into your approach to countering narcotics . Both areas have significant counter products problems. Absolutely. Being able to share the information, the intelligence sharing, the information sharing, having those agreements in place, and that is where we get to having a 3g, 4g or 5g Network Background you can share the information on that is not a prc network that we know has backdoors into being able to get information that we dont want the chinese to have. Absolutely. We have to be able to continue with those sharing agreements and being able to work seamlessly with our partners. Thank you for making that point. The actual National Security implications kind of get lost in the discussion. Thank you for illuminating that for us. Id like to turn to another thorny issue, to put it mildly. Migration and illegal migration. Migration from countries in your area of responsibility is putting pressure on the u. S. Southern border. Many observers therefore think south, should play a leading role in contending with the challenge but the southcom area of responsibility ends at the southern Mexican Border and many of the root causes of population migration are due to nonmilitary issues like poor governance, natural disasters, lack of economic opportunity. With that background in mind, i would love to know your thoughts on how should we be how should southcom and how should we be thinking about the issue of migration and that nexus between security and migration . Gen. Richardson i will answer your question in two parts. We are doing a lot in southcom so in terms of migration, in april, i traveled with secretary mayorkas and Samantha Power from usaid to panama, and that was to bring colombia and panama and the u. S. Together to sign a trilateral agreement. First it was to present the idea of the agreement and then get the agreement and sign it. All three of us did that day on 11 on the 11th of april and there were three pillars. Security, legal pathways. Everybody knows how to get in touch with a smuggler to get across the jungle but nobody knows not to get to where you sign up for pathways. How do you achieve that . That is the second pillar. The third was development. It was in communities around the jungle so that is what we are in tune with in colombia and panama and the dangers of crossing through that very expensive and dangerous jungle, so on the security pillar, since the end of april, colombia and panama, the Colombian Military and Panamanian Security forces, have been conducting operations, security operations, to go after transnational organizations doing human smuggling. Those operations have been successful. I received an updated briefing from colombia on their operations, which they have 23,500 Colombian Military involved, the entire military, army, navy and air force conducting the operations, and we have been successful on the Security S