Doubling in science and technology. So our new pillars are key. We want to keep growing at 6 and we need to grow at 6 because if we do that before the end of this decade chile might become the first hopefully not the only one latin American Country able to defeat poverty. Rose your principle expert is copper. Rose copper, of course. With whom . China is by our far our most important trading partner. Rose and what do you buy from them . You name it. Rose everything . Everything. And we are exporting them mining products also wood and timber and fish and fruits and many things also. So china has become by far our the largest trading partner. Rose and the relationship is good . It is good. We have had a diplomatic relation with china for the last 43 years. Actually, chile was the first country that established that with china and we have different systems, of course, but we get along very well. Rose is there any limit in what they will export to you or what you might not export to them . No. Its a free trade relationship. Rose does this mean china is chiles most important economic relationship . Yes. And its something very curious because one of the few countries with which china hooz a trade deficit with chile and one of the few that the u. S. Has a trade surplus is china. Rose and how do you explain that . Because they need all the copper you can give them . Yes. Yes. And we dont care if we have rose you average out as a circle. Yes. And with respect to the United States, whats the trading relationship . Rose we are exporting to the u. S. A. Lot of fish products, fruits, food also a lot of wood and timber and copper and we are importing to the u. S. Many, many things. A lot of technological. Rose whats the relationship with the United States like . Very Good Relationship. Because not only trade. We have Good Relationships in investments, in terms of political dialogue, we chair with the u. S. The main values of democracy, human rights, respect and the same approach to the world. So we have had very Good Relationship with the u. S. Rose we have had one latin american president and say america doesnt appreciate us and it hasnt paid attention to us. Well, there was a time where the american aid to latin america was very poor. And what we want rose you dont need it . Because with chile rose or the u. S. Doesnt have it to give . Well, both. laughs the u. S. Is not as rich as it used to be and latin america is not as poor as it used to be but were looking for a partnership relationship. When we invited president obama to come to chile and he gave a speech for all the latin american countries the basic message was that from now on we will be partners and therefor we will collaborate but it would not be the kind of relationship that we used to have in the past with the al lines for progress which was basically all the latin american countries expecting aid from the u. S. Now its trade, investment. If. Rose but they also people who sit at this table from latin america will argue this ought to be latin american countries and america ought to be one of the strong relationships because of this hemisphere. Yeah. Rose in terms of the economic relationship, in terms of the whole range of other things should make u. S. Relationship with latin america rose europe has two world wars. They were able to create the European Union here in this hemisphere in america without any whether or not wars. We havent been able to create i remember pre qqgt obama once announced a free trade from alaska to that is still to come. Rose and why hasnt it come . Well, part of that is that the u. S. Navy has not had the political will to do it but at the same time we have so many different approaches in latin america. For instance, their countries do not want to do that. The other countries like, for instance, those that are members of the Pacific Alliance, mexico, colombia, peru and chile that have created this alliance which is very young, oneyearold, but it has been extremely successful. And we have invited the u. S. To be part of that and actually u. S. Now is an observer member with canada, with japan, with china of the Pacific Alliance. Rose chiles also had a military history with general pinochet and all that happened with him. How much of your budget is goes to defense . About 3 of our g. N. P. Rose 3 . Significantly less than the United States. Oh, definitely yes. Rose thats an advantage for you, isnt it . It is, because at the end of the day if you spend too much money in defense you are you will not be able to spend what is necessary in education, health, innovation, technology, science. So we spend about 3 of rose those things really make a difference to the future. Education, science, innovation, health . Yea that latin american countries we have a stable democracy, we have a social market economy. The but we need to build the new pillars of development which is basically the dramatic proof to improve capital and that requires a very deep educational reform twice or three times as more as much in science and technology, we need to promote innovation and entrepreneurship. We need to produce poverty. Those are the main four pillars with which we are committed and those four pillars explain why chile is doing so well. Rose if i look to latin america i see colombia, mexico, chile brazil was growing faster than it is now. Its had a decline but may be coming back. I also and they have all essentially centered on concerned governments, those that i just mentioned on the other hand you have ecuador. Tell me about that. How do you explain . Well, they have to eyes two approaches to philosophy with within latin america. On the one hand you have the alba countries, cuba, ecuador, bolivia. On the other side you have the Pacific Alliance like mexico, colombia, chile, peru. And of course i think that our model is the right model for a country like chile and the results are provingen now because the Pacific Alliance country has grown much faster than the others. But each country has its right to choose its own way and we have learned to live with our differences so of course we have huge difference with cuba and venezuela in many aspects but we are part of latin america and we need to learn to live together. Rose whats going to happen in cuba . Who knows . We know both castro brothers are very old. Rose right. Fidel is in his 80s and raul 79, i think. Rose yes. So they have had the power in cuba for the last 50 years. What will happen with cuba when they will not be there. Who knows . I hope that cuba will move in the direction of democracy freedom and respect with human rights and many other liberties. Rose do you see any evidence of that yet . Rose do you think raul castro recognizes he has to make the economy a little bit more of a market economy. I think they are moving slowly. Rose do you think the United States makes a mistake with the embargo. I think who suffers with the embargo is the cuban people rather than the cuban government. Im not sure whether the embargo is the right way to approach this problem. Rose when you think about the United States, whats the view of the United States in latin america . I think theres a great admiration for the values that are ininspired the american dream. Democracy, freedom rose the worlds oldest democracy. Innovation, entrepreneurship and i think theres a great admiration for that. Of course the u. S. Should pay more attention to latin america. I agree with that. But not the way that some countries would want its not just a question of aid. Aid should go only to very poor countries but we should move faster and get better results in terms of economic integration. There thats something that i dont see any reason why we cannot have a free trade as was mentioned by president bush. Rose whats the most controversial social issue in chile . Educational reform. Rose really. Why . There are different views. There are some people that think the Education Sector should be monopolize bid the private sector and we think that we should have a mixed system with public and private school, with public and private university and people, students or parents have the right to choose whether they said the keys or whether they go for education. Thats one big issue. The other big discussion is chile wlpl education should be free for everybody. Rose whats your snogs my position is it should be free for those people that need it and we should have a very good system for the rest. Rose what kind of system . A credit system. Rose so your children should have to pay for an education but somebody we guarantee scholarships for all the students belonging to the 60 of the poorest households in chile. And we guarantee a very good loan system with subsidized rate for the next 30 . Sol only the richest 10 have to pay 100 of the education. I think thats a good system. Its fair and allows us to promote more equality of opportunities. Rose what are the demonstrations in the street about . Basically they ask for two things Free Education for everybody which we are not able to afford that and many of them want to monopolize the whole educational system within the Public Sector and get rid of the private sector. That would be a tremendous trade not only to freedom but also to quality of education. Rose the miners. Last time you were here we talked about the dramatic rescue of the miners. Where does that story is it still part of the do people talk about it still yes, because it was so heroic so emotional. Remember that for almost three weeks we didnt know whether they were dead or alive. We didnt know where they were. But i felt that my duty as president was to do whatever was necessary to look for them, find them and rescue them. And finally we were able to accomplish that vision and that was something which extremely emotional for the whole country, for the whole world. Rose and theyve been able to readjust . Some of them yes but some of them not. Rose a traumatic experience. And some of them have not been able to recover 100 yet. There is this about the United States and n. S. A. As you know. Revelation from snond about how the United States or n. S. A. Spied on other governments. Everybody knows a government spy. Is anything new about this for you . Were you upset . Would you take the action that the president of brazil took when she canceled a trip . Well, of course i think that the you should should not pie on friendly countries or countries in which we have a very Good Relationship. In the case of brazil, president rousseff came to the conclusion that there was a very significant and permanent spying effort and therefore she was very disappointed with that and she canceled her trip to the u. S. We have asked and we have tried to do some Research Whether that same thing happened with chile. Rose and . We have not yet come to a conclusion. Rose and suppose it was as severe and it was in brazil, as penetrating as it was. It would be something unacceptable for us. Rose how would you express that unacceptability . Well, first of all i would like to come to that conclusion but of course you cannot spy on other countries. If snond had wanted to live in chile would you allow him to come . I think he should come to the u. S. And face the judiciary rose and have a fair trial . Have a surfacetoair trial in the u. S. Rose youre a billionaire. And youve got a country that is growing well economically yet at the same time there are alarming numbers about the number of poor in chile, in the United States, every where in the world and sometimes in places the growing disparity. Its true. In the u. S. There are 40 Million People living below the poverty line even though its one of the richest countries in the world. So in the case of chile rose what is the moral thing to do and what i think that not only the moral argument is enough to deal with this, to address this problem. But on top of that to get rid of poverty is the best investment you can do in order to boast Economic Development and gain political stability. So what were doing in chile, in chile in the 70s almost 40 of the population was living in poverty. That rate has come down to 14 right now. And our government is going down and down and down. How are we dealing with this . With longterm measures creating good jobs for everybody want who wants to work and providing good education for any student that wants to be educated. Those are the most powerful tools to defeat poverty and to defeat extreme inequality. In the short term we have created a program which is called family ethical income by which is determining the income the family needs to live with dignity and we transfer resources from the private sector but not unconditionally. We say we will help you to help yourself. So if you do your part well do ours. So its a kind of Strategic Alliance between poor families and the government to overcome poverty. And its working very well. Because were not promoteing so i say look, if you want to defeat poverty you need to keep your kids in school, you need to train yourself so you need to do your own effort. Dont expect everything will come from the government because thats not the solution. Rose whats the biggest impediment for chile because youll be gone in six months to maintain the Economic Growth rate it has today . First of all, its not easy to grow at 6 a year. Rose few do. Few do. It takes a lot of commitment, a lot of courage and you have to be taken all the time measures to innovate, to improve, to modernize the whole system so the worst danger is that when you think that growth happens by chance or falls from the sky. So i hope that whoever is the next government they will realize they need to keep improving the quality of education. Keep increasing our investment effort, keep trying to modernize the state and promoting entrepreneurship and innovation and science and technology. Its not that question of sitting there saying i have all the rights and no responsibilities. Which is a big problem because people are very conscious of the rights but sometimes they are not as conscious with respect to their responsibilities. Rose tell me about the countrys mood at the recent anniversary of the 73 coupe. Well, in 1973 our democracy chroopsed. It was not a sudden death it was a long agony that started in the 60s because the leftest introduced violence into politics and they didnt respect our rule of law and finally all that process came to an end on 1973 with the coup detat. And then we had for 17 years a military government which, of course, did terrible things in terms of human rights but also some good things in terms of modernization and improving the capacity of the country to face the new challenge. But we recovered our democracy in 198889 and it was done in a very wise and sound way because normally transition from a military government to a democratic government takes place in the middle of economic crisis, political chaos, social violence. That one the case in chile. We reached an agreement on how to recover our democracy with just a natural way of living. Rose has full justice been done for the people who suffered under general pinochet . We have done as much justice as possible. We will never find 100 justice in this world. But the that effort the Chilean Society has done in order to find the truth and to provide justice has been very remarkable. Rose should he have been in jail . Well, he was he was he was taken to court in chile but he died before the end of the strike. Rose theres also this, which has gotten attention, too, the chilecon valley and the start of the chile program, tell me how they contribute to what you have been talking about in terms of science and research and in terms of an Economic Development with an eye to the future. We have to progress, one of them is called that were basically trying to attack innovators or entrepreneurs from all over the world and we say come to chile to develop your idea, your project and we will give you a sum, a grant, its about 40,000 plus all the facilities for you to develop your idea, your project in chile. We have been able to attack more than one thousand entrepreneurs or innovators, good ideas from all over the world. That has been extremely successful. At the same time we are sending chile innovators to go to Silicon Valley or any place in order for them to be able to learn this atmosphere, this culture of innovation science, technologies. Rose its an interesting thing. Sometimes coming out of american arrogance and sometimes coming out of americans confidence there is this idea that, you know, we have such that our Economic Future will always be bright because we are sort of have owned innovation but lots of people come forward and youre one of them to say innovation and those kinds of values can be learned and we can employ them in chile or other parts of the world. Well, innovation can be learned in part. In other part lives in your part. But the u. S. Should not rely on things that the inknow separation capabilities are there forever. For instance, the u. S. Has been growing less than the rest of the world for the last 20, 30 years. Thats why losing participation in so i think the u. S. Cannot rest on the fast strength. They have to be all the time siting the future strength. Rose and building on it. According to deutsche bank, chile has become the worlds first major solar power producer to be selfsustaining or subsidy free. How did you do that . Chile was very poor in terms of old sources of energy. Basically fossil fuels gas, oil coal. But we are extremely rich in terms of the future sources of clean renewable energy. For instn q, in chile we have t solar radiance in the world and they are in a plateau and therefore theres no dust and therefore the capacity to produce solar energy is incredible. Thats why in chile we have been able to produce the cheapest or one of the cheapest solar energy in the world. Its becoming competitive. Now, it doesnt need subsidies. We are not doing whats pan ya did. They subsidized everybody and then they couldnt afford it. We are saying look, we will help you to an