(Reuters) – U.S. President Barack Obama and 33  other leaders from the Americas met in a three-day summit in  Trinidad and Tobago to debate economic, energy and security  challenges facing the hemisphere.

They talked of forging a new partnership to tackle present  and future problems.  Following is a sample of comments from some of the  leaders:

U.S. PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA

“What we showed here is that we can make progress when  we’re willing to break free from some of the stale debates and  old ideologies that have dominated and distorted the debate in  this hemisphere for far too long.”

“We showed that there are no senior or junior partners in  the Americas; we’re simply partners, committed to advancing a  common agenda and overcoming common challenges.”

“The United States remains the most powerful, wealthiest  nation on Earth, but we’re only one nation, and the problems  that we confront, whether it’s drug cartels, climate change,  terrorism, you name it, can’t be solved just by one country.  And I think if you start with that approach, then you are  inclined to listen and not just talk.”

BRAZILIAN PRESIDENT
LUIZ INACIO LULA DA SILVA

“Obama took a plunge into Latin America … We created a  new way of viewing each other and of overcoming our differences  by debating them.”

“A new dynamic can be created. Let’s be frank, everyone  expected Chavez and Obama would attack each other and the exact  opposite happened … War did not break out and we had an  exceptional meeting.”

(On the region’s relations with the United States)

“We have to stop this mania of (thinking that) we’re small,  we’re poor, that someone has to come and help us. We might want  financing, but it’s we who have to look after our own  problems.”

“Diversity is positive. We mustn’t fear it.”

VENEZUELAN PRESIDENT
HUGO CHAVEZ

“We’re not anybody’s backyard any more, and nobody should  try to make us that any more, and we’re not anybody’s colony,  we are free peoples.”

“I’ve been really pleased to meet the president of the  United States, ‘I want to be your friend.’“

CANADIAN PRIME MINISTER
STEPHEN HARPER

“We don’t need to have ideological harangues … But the  fact that we did have a good hemispheric meeting I think bodes  well for better general relations in the future and moving  ahead more productively on core economic areas with almost  everybody on board.”

ST VINCENT AND THE GRENADINES
PRIME MINISTER RALPH  GONSALVES

“He (Obama) is a cool man, he’s intellectual, he wants to  have a fresh start, new directions, he’s not encumbered by the  mistakes of the past. We are moving forward and also President  Chavez and other persons on the ‘left’ of the political  spectrum. I think, generally speaking, there has been a meeting  of the minds but one swallow a summer does not make.”

BOLIVIAN PRESIDENT EVO MORALES

“It’s impossible to forget the past.”