Biotechnology is a major component in the U.S. plan to increase agricultural productivity and economic growth throughout the world. The science of biotechnology is helping to guide more precise crop and livestock breeding efforts, to diagnose crops and livestock diseases, to develop more effective livestock vaccines, and to engineer plants resistant to diseases and pests. Millions of starving people benefit every year from biotech foods provided to them from the United States Government and from planting programs in their own countries.

The United States is leading the fight against HIV/AIDs, tuberculosis, malaria, and other neglected tropical diseases. President Obama is continuing the critical work of the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), launched in 2003 to combat global HIV/AIDS. Through PEPFAR, the American people have funded $18.8 billion of programs to fight HIV/AIDS. The U.S. Congress has authorized up to an additional $48 billion for HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria over the next five years. The United States is also the largest contributor to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria, which has detected and treated over 4 million cases of TB.

The protection of fundamental human rights was a cornerstone in the establishment of the United States over 200 years ago. Since then, a central goal of U.S. foreign policy has been the protection of human rights, as embodied in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights . The United States believes that the promotion of human rights helps secure the peace, deter aggression, promote the rule of law, combat crime and corruption, strengthen democracies, and prevent humanitarian crises.

The U.S. government estimates 600,000 to 800,000 men, women and children are trafficked across international borders every year into slavery, including 14,500 to 17,500 in the United States alone. Some estimate the global number of trafficking victims to be in the millions – forced into domestic servitude, sex slavery, , work as child soldiers, child camel jockeys, and other forced labor. T rafficking deprives people of freedom in every part of the world and is a grave threat to human rights. It also threatens both public health and the national security, as disease and organized crime are closely connected to the scourge of trafficking.

The United States seeks to promote freedom of religion and conscience throughout the world as a fundamental human right and as a source of stability for all countries, assist newly formed democracies in implementing freedom of religion and conscience, a ssist religious and human rights NGOs in promoting religious freedom; identify and denounce regimes that are severe persecutors of their citizens or others on the basis of religious belief.

Today terrorism affects the entire world and no one is excluded from its reach. The first step to defeating terrorism is promoting freedom, justice, and human dignity – working to end tyranny, to promote effective democracies, and to extend prosperity through free and fair trade and wise development policies . Preventing terrorist access to or use of weapons of mass destruction, their delivery systems, related materials, and advanced conventional weaponry, is one of our government's highest priorities.