Strikes me kind of uneasy...

[Psychoflood]

I too was shocked when i heard multiple references during speeches to all the teams talking about how America is the best country in the world and i instantly turned to multiple members of my team and pointed out it was an international competition and the flags from many other countries were proudly flying right above his head. Of course, as a citizen everyone has the right to love their country.. but FIRST is based on a strong belief of gracious professionalism.. and bragging that your country is better than all the others, especially when there's many of them in your audience, is not very graciously professional at all. I think it's wonderful that he sees how important FIRST is, but he also needs to see how important FIRST's morals are.

[FourPenguins]

First of all, I'm glad to hear that the few foreign posters thus far were not very offended.
Second, I would like to say that as an American citizen, it is appalling to me that anyone, especially a representative of our government, would speak so rudely to the international community.
It's true that American industry is great, but it's also true that Canada has one of the world's largest petroleum production capacities, China has one of the fastest growing industries in the world, and the European Union is a shining example of international cooperation to form a true global economy.
By putting America out there as "the best," to a room dotted with foreign students, what message does he send? If I were in the position of those students, I would be insulted and threatened.
Rather than embracing the new world economy that is rapidly becoming a reality, the Secretary only perpetuates the nation vs. nation trade scheme of the past thousand years.