Chilean President Sebastián Piñera Learning Lessons In The Big Easy

President Sebastián Piñera made his first trip to the United States since taking office in March 2010. His aim is to learn lessons from New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin and the city’s recovery after Hurricane Katrina.

Chile was struck by a magnitude-8.8 quake on February 27, the fifth strongest ever measured. The quake also spawned a tsunami that devastated coastal areas. As President Pinera was sworn in March 11 the country was still being rocked by aftershocks.

The “Reconstruction President” Pinera faces huge obsticles in providing for the tens of thousands of homeless Chileans as winter approaches and getting every displaced child into school before the end of April.

Pinera put the cost of the earthquake at $30 billion. He said 342 people were killed and 95 others are presumed dead. He said the catastrophe destroyed 4,000 schools and left 800,000 victims in its wake.

The Pinera administration wants to understand what was done well and poorly after Katrina. Mayor Nagin and President Pinera “have discussed ways that New Orleans has used their devastating experience to rebuild a better city than before,” the mayor’s spokesman James Ross said.

The Chilean delegation will the travel to Washington, where President Pinera will speak at the Brookings Institute on Monday before joining the White House summit on nuclear security.

U.S. President Barack Obama is going to highlight Chile’s cooperation in keeping highly enriched uranium, or HEU, out of the hands of potential terrorists. Chilean and U.S. engineers extracted the last of Chile’s HEU and shipped it in customized containers to South Carolina, where it will likely be converted to safer fuel and resold for use in the world’s reactors.

Editor's Note: Miguel Juan Sebastián Piñera Echenique born December 1, 1949) is the current President of Chile having won the second round of the presidential election that took place on January 17, 2010, and subsequently taking office on March 11, 2010. He is a well-known economist, investor, businessperson, politician, former Senator, and leader of the presidential and parliamentary electoral coalition Coalition for Change.

Piñera was sworn in as the 35th President of the Republic of Chile on March 11, 2010, in a ceremony held in a plenary session of the National Congress in Valparaíso. In the same ceremony, Piñera's Cabinet ministers were sworn in. The ceremony was also marked by a 6.9 Mw earthquake and subsequent aftershocks that upset the invitees. Shortly after, the National Congress building was evacuated due to a tsunami alert that proved to be false a couple of hours later.

During his first official meeting with his Council of Ministers on Wednesday, February 10, Piñera issued a formal memorandum calling upon all members to renounce their positions in all private companies by the 28th of February in order to avoid conflicts of interest. The memorandum also said that in regards to national heritage, secretaries of state whose affiliation with companies having direct receipt of fiscal monies must either remove themselves from those associations or honor the restrictions of their competitors.[42] Ten of his 22 ministers have involvement in companies with significant financial means.

By: Daniel Brewington

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