Rethinking U.S. Strategic Approaches in Central America

Senior level U.S Department of State Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Central America Francisco Palmieri will discuss U.S. foreign policy priorities in Central America, the U.S.-Central American response to humanitarian situation of unaccompanied children migrating north, and the imperative of accelerating Central American economic and political integration.

Speaker: Francisco (Paco) Palmieri is the Deputy Assistant Secretary for the Caribbean and Central America in the Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs. Prior to his current assignment, he served as Deputy Executive Secretary in the Executive Secretariat. Previous to his 7th floor assignment, he served as the Director of the Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs’ Office of Policy, Planning, and Coordination (WHA/PPC). He has served in the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Honduras, and as Senior Desk Officer for Venezuela. He also led INL’s Latin American and Caribbean Programs Office, where he was responsible for over $800 million in programs, including the Colombia and Mexico/Merida operations, 19 Narcotics Affairs offices throughout the Western Hemisphere, and more than 1,500 employees. His other Senior Foreign Service experience includes Director of the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement’s (INL) Embassy Baghdad Office. Overseas, Mr. Palmieri served as Political Counselor at the American Embassy in Tegucigalpa, Honduras. He also served overseas in San Salvador as the Human Rights Officer at the end of El Salvador’s internal conflict (1988-1990), Santo Domingo as a Vice Consul, and Madrid as Political-Military Affairs Officer. Mr. Palmieri served also as a Legislative Management Officer in the Bureau of Legislative Affairs. Mr. Palmieri earned a M.S. in International Strategic Studies from the National War College in June 2006. He received his A.B. in Politics from Princeton University in 1983 and attended the University of Texas’s Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs from 1985-1986.