I think if they had to do it over again, they might have considered postponing it. But now, I think they're just going to go ahead with it, make the best of it, this is an opportunity to put the spotlight on issues that are important to us in Western Hemisphere, and I'm sure the administration will have some success in doing Western Hemisphere and I'm sure there will be useful meetings, useful conversations on a whole host of issues.

John Negroponte

John Dimitri Negroponte (; born July 21, 1939) is an American diplomat. He is currently a James R. Schlesinger Distinguished Professor at the Miller Center for Public Affairs at the University of Virginia. He is a former J.B. and Maurice C. Shapiro Professor of International Affairs at the George Washington University's Elliott School of International Affairs. Prior to this appointment, he served as a research fellow and lecturer in international affairs at Yale University's Jackson Institute for Global Affairs, United States Deputy Secretary of State (2007–2009), and the first ever Director of National Intelligence (2005–2007). Negroponte served in the United States Foreign Service from 1960 to 1997. From 1981 to 1996, he had tours of duty as United States ambassador in Honduras, Mexico, and the Philippines. After leaving the Foreign Service, he subsequently served in the Bush Administration as U.S. permanent representative to the United Nations from 2001 to 2004, and was ambassador to Iraq from June 2004 to April 2005. In November 2010, some of Negroponte's letters were released on the website WikiLeaks.

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