Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau at a Trade Over Aid Deals Showcase

DEPUTY SECRETARY LANDAU: Thank you. Thank you. In this job, I have to give a lot of speeches. And sometimes I come into a room, and it's kind of - you go over your talking points and you kind of get through the speech, but this is very different for me. This one is one that is really the heartland of why I'm in this job and what I'm trying to do in this job.

And I just want to, first of all, thank President Trump and Secretary Rubio for giving me the opportunity to serve as Deputy Secretary of State and to, in a sense, be the quarterback of our economic diplomacy efforts, which again, as Ambassador Waltz just said - let me parenthetically thank Ambassador Waltz, thank Ambassador Negrea, the entire USUN mission for putting this together, this program, this initiative.

I will say I am so delighted to be in this job under this President, under this Secretary, working with colleagues like these, because I think for many decades economic and commercial issues have taken a back seat in the world of diplomacy. And everybody thinks, oh, to be a diplomat you have to resolve political questions and military questions, security. And that's certainly part of it. But ultimately, as good diplomats, if you back and read what our Founding Fathers wrote about why we have a foreign policy in this country - and I'm sure for many of you and your countries it may be the same thing - it is to bring prosperity to your people through economic and commercial intercourse with other countries.

And ultimately, those of us who are working for governments that are democratically elected have to show our people that their confidence in us was well placed by making their lives better. And you make their lives better obviously by providing a safe and secure country; that's very important. But also and equally important is a prosperous country, where people have economic opportunities and jobs, and diplomacy is not - that is not different than diplomacy. That is the core of diplomacy.

If you'll indulge me a second, on a personal note, I will say my father was a career diplomat, and he started his career - he'd been in the private sector for many years, until he was 37, and then President Eisenhower in the late '50s started a program to bring people with private sector experience into the government, because the feeling even then was that professional diplomats were not focused enough on commercial diplomacy, didn't have the experience in terms of how to get deals done. And so my father, at age 37, came in. His first post was as commercial attache at our embassy in Montevideo, Uruguay. And from then, he went on to a long career in the Foreign Service. But he always said - and I took this very much to heart when I was an ambassador - that a good ambassador is, first and foremost, a good commercial attache and that economic - good economic relations between countries create a lasting foundation of goodwill between countries.

Many of us who are involved in government service, we come and go. We'll be - at best I don't have any job security; that our administration is here another two and a half years, and then there'll be somebody new standing here. And it is very important - the only thing that those of us who are in government now can do is try to create things that are real, that last. And these kind of economic projects, that creates a lasting foundation that outlasts any government and that really provides real value for people.

I mean, aid programs can, again, keep things afloat. But ultimately, as you all know, they come with strings. A lot of times they come with conditions that you have to do this or that, which may be contrary to your country's culture, and you have to be put to a very unpleasant choice. Do I have to compromise on this or that in order to get this aid? Ultimately, it's so important to identify what is real, lasting economic value that can provide benefit for a particular foreign country and also for those in other countries. I think there's often a misconception around the world that when you have foreign capital come into your country, that you are somehow ceding sovereignty or somehow that is problematic for your country. I mean, I think it's important for all of us in this room to be affirmative apostles of the message that no, investment is an engine of growth; you're bringing money into the country.

And again, sovereign governments, they set the terms for what are the conditions for the investment, this is how much goes to the government - that is fine. As long as those terms are clear and people enter into a deal understanding what the terms are, then they are happy, in my experience. What businesses want is certainty and a framework that they know if they invest their money, they - whatever those returns are, that that can be calculated in advance, and that they can actually then tell the people to whom they report that they have been successful, and what was promised actually has been carried out.

And it's so important to make sure that everybody understands - public opinion as well everybody in this room - that this is a - these are win-win opportunities, that you have - local people get capital flowing in that creates infrastructure, that creates jobs in that country, economic growth, and that also creates benefits for another country, as well as important political ties that are lasting political ties, and gives a lot of people an economic stake in that relationship so that, if anybody starts to wobble on something, you have important business people in both countries saying, well, listen, don't jeopardize this relationship because it's a very valuable relationship. It's not just built on sand.

And so again, I am very excited to be part of this initiative globally that says: for too long, I think, we have kind of lived on the mirage that the world of aid could go on, and I just think both sides - the recipient countries, as well as the donor countries - have to be - have to recognize that it's a much preferable model to actually find what are the real economic possibilities. That's not always so easy or so obvious, but I see my role, certainly, in the government - as in our government's role - as being the interlocutor, right? I mean, we are not the ones in our government - our system, we're a private market system - who actually deploy capital around the world, right? We have an incredibly dynamic private sector in the United States. It's, I think, the envy of the world, and certainly it's something that continually amazes me.

And - but I want to make sure that our private sector can accurately assess the risks of investing abroad and understands those things. Because obviously, they're going to look - any of you - by the way, who here - how many of you in the audience are from the private sector? Right, let's get a hand - set of hands. Okay. Well, God bless you all. How many are from governments, foreign governments? See, that - how many from the U.S. Government? Okay. Well, that is a very healthy mix. It looked like - (laughter). That's great. And so maybe try to - try to talk to each other.

(Laughter.)

I will tell you, I see that as my role - all of us in the U.S. Government - as being an intermediary between our dynamic private sector and opportunities abroad. And I think there are - can be communications problems, and sometimes there's risk assessment problems. It's all about information flow. And so it's our job - if I'm doing my job correctly, the American private sector will be aware of opportunities, and frankly they can then tell me the challenges. They - I say to American private sector: why don't you invest in this country? Right?

Let me say this. I go all around the world in my job. I've been to all the continents now. And I hear all the time: Where are the Americans, and how come we get five bids from another country halfway around the world and zero from American companies? That's a big problem. I spend most of my sleepless nights when I'm thinking about my job pondering that question. And I think I had been thinking about it somewhat incorrectly. When I had been thinking about American companies abroad, I had been thinking about the operating companies that actually you see their signs there - the Bechtels, who are construction and infrastructure, oil companies that are investing in oil wells, and our mining companies, and other kinds of companies like that.

And they're an important piece of the puzzle, don't get me wrong. But I think one of the pieces that I had not focused on sufficiently was our capital. The United States and particularly New York City - you all, ladies and gentlemen, are sitting in the world's financial capital. There are trillions of dollars here that can be deployed around the world. You get people on the capital side interested in the possibility for your country, they will be the best people then to talk to the operating people and say, I'm interested in putting money, why don't we talk about ways to do this.

And I don't think I had quite understood in my own mind until relatively recently - a lightbulb went off - that I need to do the talking not only to the companies that are participating in the actual investments abroad, but the people one step behind who are deploying the capital. And so I had a meeting yesterday that was one of, I thought, the most important meetings I've had in my tenure in office with some of the leading purveyors of capital around the world. And I asked these questions: Why aren't you there? What are the problems?

I think one of the problems that I heard is that the U.S. Government is very fragmented in terms of working with those companies. A lot of times they want to invest, they want to have the U.S. Government involved in these projects, so the U.S. Government has skin in the game. So in case you get somebody in a foreign country who decides - maybe there's a coup and somebody's trying to change the terms of the project. They want to see the U.S. Government co-investing with them or involved so that they're not left holding the bag, right, especially - I'm not going to be here forever, right? I mean, I am your best friend if you're in private capital now, but you don't know that I'll be - I won't be here in five years, right? Your projects have a long-term horizon.

So I think that's a very fair point. And I want to make sure - and I am very blessed that the President has not only asked me to serve as Deputy Secretary of State, but also as chairman of the board of the Development Finance Corporation, the DFC; also the Millennium Challenge Corporation, which can help do some initial assistance programs that ultimately are geared towards allowing private sector investments to take place. We also have the EXIM Bank. We have the president right here. But it can be a little bit confusing with the State Department, the Commerce Department, the EXIM, the DFC. I think we need to become more of a one-stop shop, and I'm going to work on that.

But in the meantime, I just want you all to know that at the State Department, this is very much what I consider to be the heartland of my job. I hope you can feel the passion that I bring to this, because it is something that, ultimately, I think whether my tenure in this office is successful or not will be measured by the kind of deals that are going to be discussed today and hopefully the many more that are still to come.

Let me just give a couple of very concrete examples of things that have been of interest to me. One of the parts of the world, I think, where there has been underinvestment has been in the Pacific Islands. And so I convened, along with Admiral Paparo from our Pacific Command in Honolulu, a business summit, an investment roundtable in Honolulu last February, to bring the leaders of Pacific Island nations - is Prime Minister Marape here from Papua New Guinea? I was hoping he might join us. Anyway, that's a great country with lots of opportunities there for - I think the American private sector can do very many very valuable things.

And anyway, but all these Pacific islands. And I said - just identify the sectors that you're interested in seeing, and we will make sure we have representatives of those sectors. I want to make sure we also bring the people who have the capital. We can do that - if there are particular countries, we are happy to kind of promote these kinds of forums or fora in order to bring the private sector together with - because the private sector is looking to deploy capital around the world. I mean, you have no shortage of people who are interested in the opportunities. My job, our job collectively from the U.S. Government side. is to enhance that communication.

So again, I just want to say how thrilled I am once again to be at this event. And let's just make sure to keep this an ongoing conversation. And I just want to underscore my personal commitment, as well as our administration's commitment, to make this an unprecedented golden era for the American private sector around the world. I think everybody in this room has an important part to play to make that promise come true. Thank you very much. (Applause.)

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