"Venezuela's ideologically driven largesse is the only thing keeping Cuba's creaking economic system afloat," says AS/COA's Christopher Sabatini in a Q&A with Latin American Advisor, adding: "There is no other country that could step in."

"Several members of the Council of the Americas Trade Advisory Group are pressing for 'swift approval' of all three pending free trade agreements and a way forward on a worker-aid program that is tying up passage," writes The Hill of a COA op-ed published in the The Washington Post.

AS/COA's President and CEO Susan Segal is ranked one of Latin America's top 50 businesswomen in the latest issue of Latin Business Chronicle.

During COA's annual Washington Conference, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called on Latin American governments to speed up reforms, saying that U.S. President Barack Obama is pushing to get Congress to pass the stalled trade agreements with Colombia and Panama.

The Cuban Communist Party's Sixth Congress, held on April 16, was "a big deal in the sense that it did confirm a number of economic reforms, but politically it mounted to nothing," says AS/COA's Christopher Sabatini on Business News Network's Headline.