HERE<\/a>\u00a0or read below.\u00a0<\/p>\n\u201cGood morning and welcome to this joint East Asia and Pacific and Middle East and North Africa Subcommittee hearing\u00a0titled\u00a0\u201cHelping American Businesses Win Abroad: Strengthening U.S. Commercial Diplomacy.\u201d\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Commercial diplomacy is no longer a supporting function of foreign policy\u2014it\u202fis\u202fforeign policy.\u00a0The Trump\u00a0Administration has made clear that economic security is national security, and that how we compete economically abroad directly shapes our strategic position in the world.\u00a0This is the right time\u00a0to take a hard look at whether our current approach to commercial diplomacy is fit for purpose.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The United States\u00a0possesses\u00a0strong tools to support American businesses overseas, but those tools are not always organized or deployed to maximize impact. Our\u00a0current\u00a0model\u00a0is\u00a0split across multiple agencies and unevenly implemented at our embassies and posts\u00a0abroad. This can create gaps in execution, unclear lines of responsibility, and missed opportunities. At the same time, global competition is intensifying, and the demands on our commercial diplomacy system are only growing.\u00a0<\/p>\n
We see this challenge most clearly in our competition with China, which deploys a highly coordinated, state-backed approach to supporting its companies abroad. The\u00a0challenge\u00a0for the United States is not merely recognizing this reality, but ensuring our own system is structured to compete effectively.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Incremental changes will not be enough. This moment calls for more fundamental\u2014and potentially disruptive\u2014thinking about how we organize and execute commercial diplomacy. We should be willing to question whether a structure\u00a0largely unchanged\u00a0for decades\u00a0remains\u00a0right for today\u2019s challenges.\u00a0<\/p>\n
That includes examining whether\u00a0consolidating\u00a0commercial diplomacy functions\u2014such as by moving the Foreign Commercial Service into the Department of State\u2014could improve coordination and deliver better results. It also means considering whether the State Department itself needs to build a stronger, more specialized commercial diplomacy capability, potentially through reform of the economic officer track or the creation of a dedicated commercial diplomacy career track.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Ultimately, commercial\u00a0diplomacy succeeds or fails at post. We must ensure we have the right people, with the right\u00a0expertise, in the right places, and that they are properly empowered and incentivized to deliver results for American businesses. Structure, workforce, and incentives all matter if we are serious about helping U.S. companies win abroad.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Congress has taken important steps to elevate commercial diplomacy, including through prior reforms focused on the role of Chiefs of Mission. Yet we also have a responsibility to assess whether deeper structural changes are needed to align our resources, authorities, and personnel systems with our strategic\u00a0objectives.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Today\u2019s witnesses bring valuable firsthand experience from the field. We look forward to hearing what is working, where the system is falling short, and\u2014most importantly\u2014what changes would have the greatest impact. We are particularly interested in ideas that go beyond incremental fixes and address the underlying structure of the system itself.<\/p>\n
\ufeff\u00a0<\/p>\n
If we want American businesses to win abroad, we need a\u00a0new\u00a0commercial diplomacy model that is coordinated\u00a0and competitive. That may require us to rethink long-standing structures and consider bold\u00a0new approaches. I look forward to a candid discussion on how we can get this right.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Washington, D.C. \u2013 Today, Congresswoman Young Kim (CA-40) chaired a joint subcomittee hearing \u201cHelping American Business Win Broad:…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":586374,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,3,21,19,22,20,25,24],"class_list":["post-586373","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-states","tag-america","tag-news","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/586373","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=586373"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/586373\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/586374"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=586373"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=586373"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=586373"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}