In an interview with Jornal de Negócios, the United States Ambassador to Portugal, Randi Charno Levine, addresses Portugal’s decision, under the former Prime Minister, to exclude high-risk 5G suppliers like Huawei from the country and the controversy that targeted American universities and the International Partnerships with Portugal – Austin Texas, Carnegie Mellon and MIT – stating that she believes that it is now “behind us”.
The news that Elvira Fortunato, Minister of Science, Technology and Higher Education in the outgoing government, was aiming to terminate the protocols with those entities sparked the controversy. However, António Costa’s government ultimately decided to extend the agreement for another year, deferring negotiations to the succeeding government.
“I sincerely hope and believe that it was just a one-off. These are solid relationships and programs that have been in existence for 20 years,” says Randi Charno Levine in her interview with Jornal de Negócios.
“We recognize that Portugal is a leader in the digital transition. We recognize that it is a leader in the energy transition. We recognize that Portugal has increased the number of patent applications threefold in the last ten years. So, there are great things happening here in Portugal,” says the Ambassador.
The Ambassador also emphasized the positive impact of American universities’ investments in Portugal, citing successful ventures like Feedzai and Unbabel “American universities are very proud of the investment they have made in Portugal with Portuguese researchers”.
Moving forward, the American Ambassador expressed her commitment to meeting with the new government to present the success of these partnerships through compelling data reaffirming the importance and benefits of collaboration between the United States and Portugal: “all the wonderful information and statistics about how successful this has been for Portugal”, hoping “that information will speak for itself”.
