Interesting Remarks By President Obama During His Visit To Argentina

Remarks on 23 March 2016 by President Barack Obama during his visit to Argentina

"And I think one of the great things about America -- and I said this in Cuba -- is we actually engage in a lot of self-criticism."

"The one thing that I will say is true, though, is that everything we do today is designed to take into account transparency, human rights, to speak out on behalf of those issues.  Even where we don’t feel that we can force changes on a government, we're still going to speak out about them.  So I made a historic trip to Havana, and I said the people of Cuba have nothing to fear from me, but you should know what I really believe.  I believe that democracy is better than a one-party or one-person dictatorship.  I believe in freedom of speech and freedom of assembly, and that people shouldn’t be arbitrarily detained."

"And I said this to President Castro in Cuba.  I said, look, you've made great progress in educating young people.  Every child in Cuba gets a basic education -- that's a huge improvement from where it was.  Medical care -- the life expectancy of Cubans is equivalent to the United States, despite it being a very poor country, because they have access to health care.  That's a huge achievement.  They should be congratulated.  But you drive around Havana and you say this economy is not working.  It looks like it did in the 1950s.  And so you have to be practical in asking yourself how can you achieve the goals of equality and inclusion, but also recognize that the market system produces a lot of wealth and goods and services.  And it also gives individuals freedom because they have initiative."