A view from the State Department - An interview with Deputy Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger - Interview

Business America, March 9, 1992

Following is a conversation between Deputy Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger and Business America. Mr. Eagleburger and Secretary of State James Baker have made export promotion and commercial assistance the top priority for all Ambassadors and U.S. Embassies. Theodore A. Rosen, U.S. and Foreign Commercial Service Deputy Assistant Secretary for International Operations, conducted the interview for Business America.

BA: Mr. Secretary, this issue of Business America salutes the role of U.S. Ambassadors in promoting U.S. exports. You and Secretary Baker have been instrumental in placing export promotion on the top priority list at U.S. Embassies. Are you satisfied?

Eagleburger: I am not satisfied. I am not sure if the export promotion priority has been institutionalized. There has been a major improvement in the way U.S. Ambassadors and the Foreign Service establishment try to assist U.S. business overall. U.S. business has noted the improvement and new attitude, but there are still problems and there are still complaints.

The Foreign Service has spent 50 years concentrating on political and military affairs at a time when the U.S. economy was preeminent. Now there is a cultural change under way in the Foreign Service.

Most Ambassadors and most Senior Foreign Service Officers understand, and the younger generation of Foreign Service Officers clearly understands, the importance of export promotion. We are much better off now, but it is too early to tell if the export priority is institutionalized.

Any Ambassador or Foreign Service Officer who has his or her head screwed on right knows that the U.S. position in the world is far more dependent on our ability to compete in world markets. We must institute more training to give Foreign Service Officers the skills to do what they must do in this new world of commercial competition.

BA: Assuming that State's overall personnel level will be about level, is this the time to cut back on the number of Political Officers and add to the economic cone?

Eagleburger: It's coming. There's no question that the training process has to change. The emphasis on political and political/military affairs has to shift to commercial. We have to spend a lot more time training people to be good advocates of U.S. business. In the best of all worlds everyone in the Embassy is doing something to assist U.S. exports.

The question is not really about a shift to the economic cone where officers are writing about the balance of payments and the need for economic stabilization. What is more important is that Foreign Service Officers understand business, about the needs of U.S. business and how to help U.S. companies make the right connections abroad. Embassy officers need to understand how business works, something that is not necessarily guaranteed by a PhD in economics.

The question really is how do we get Embassy Officers into the minds of the American business community. That is a much more difficult task than understanding a statistical matrix.

In a time of constrained resources we will have to shift emphasis. but not necessarily from the traditional Political Officer to the traditional Economic Officer. What we need is to develop in all Foreign Service Officers a better instinct for understanding the needs of U.S. business abroad.

BA: Has U.S. business gotten the message that the U.S. government has the information, and the desire to actively support their export efforts?

Eagleburger: We must advertise to U.S. business that we are there, that our attitude has changed, and that we care. When we are asked to help, we have to perform and provide the right advice. The Commerce Department, and to some extent the State Department, should be out proselytizing in the United States, for example telling U.S. business, chambers of commerce, and exporter associations that we want to be more active. U.S. business should then tell us when we do it right, and when we do it wrong.

BA: Who is the target business client of U.S. Embassies? The large U.S. multinational or the smaller, infrequent exporter? Should Ambassadors' priority be on the transaction size or expanding the number of U.S. companies in the export business?

Eagleburger: In no way should we discriminate on the basis of the size of the company. We owe each U.S. company equal attention. One of the problems is that we cannot assist companies unless they come to the Embassy and ask for information and advice. We tend to support the megadeal better than the smaller deal because the large corporations know how to use us better.

That said, there is a tendency to help the large industrial conglomerate more quickly than the small company you have never heard of. That is something in the culture we are trying to change.

Small- and medium-sized companies do not know what we have to offer and that needs to be changed. We must react just as strenuously on their behalf as we do for larger companies.

BA: What is a U.S. company?

Eagleburger: That is a dilemma I cannot answer. We are working with the Department of Commerce to establish rules of the road, and clearly some criteria - U.S. content, ownership, etc. - will take precedence over others.