Antony J. Blinken, Secretary of State

On behalf of the Government and people of the United States of America, I wish the people of the Kingdom of Thailand a peaceful and prosperous new year ahead on the occasion of Songkran on April 13.

As the United States and Thailand commemorate 190 years of diplomatic ties, I am proud that our alliance and partnership are stronger than ever. Together, we have emerged from the COVID-19 pandemic and are seizing every opportunity to deepen and expand our ties. In March alone, Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-o-cha welcomed over 100 U.S. companies across 20 sectors who traveled to Thailand as part of Trade Winds, the United States’ largest annual trade mission and nearly 50 U.S. agricultural companies joined the VIV Asia global animal feed trade show to further our economic ties. In addition, we built on our over 60 years of public health partnership when U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Dr. Walensky visited Thailand to discuss how we can work together to prevent, prepare, and respond to future pandemics. We also forged new educational ties between dozens of U.S. and Thai universities and educational institutions and held our largest Cobra Gold exercise in over a decade. Every day, the U.S.-Thai partnership advances shared goals for a free and open, connected, prosperous, secure, and resilient region.

In this New Year for Thailand, we look forward to bringing the vision of our 2022 Communiqué on Strategic Alliance and Partnership to life through revitalizing our economies, strengthening our education partnerships, deepening our people-to-people ties, and advancing our shared sustainability goals, in line with Thailand’s Bio-Circular Green Economy model, during the United States’ APEC 2023 host year.

We wish the people of the Kingdom of Thailand a joyous New Year.