Military power is most often seen as the regulator of world stability. But soft power, one that uses economic development, can be a better influencer of global behavior, according to participants Sept. 3 in a forum held by the World Affairs Council of New Hampshire.
The forum in the Memorial Union Building at the University of New Hampshire in Durham, featured Enoh Ebong, director of the U.S. Trade and Development Agency (USTDA), and U.S. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen.
Hosted by World Affairs Council of New Hampshire executive director Tim Horgan, the event centered around the issue of “Commercial Diplomacy for Developing Economies.”
The USTDA is a government organization that creates development in countries to promote the export of U.S. goods and services. According to Ebong, the main components of development are in the sectors of climate, clean energy, transportation, digital infrastructure and health care infrastructure.
In its 2023 annual report, the USTDA said it “facilitated more than $119 billion in U.S. exports to the infrastructure projects that we have supported since our founding in 1992.” Ebong has been its director for a little more than three years.
Horgan focused the discussion on what he called “the intersection of what we call commercial diplomacy, national security and foreign affairs.”
As a member of the Senate’s Foreign Relations Committee, Appropriations Committee, Armed Services Committee and Small Business Committee, Shaheen has a front-row view of how the three intersect.
She noted specifically the influence that China is trying to assert in both military power and soft power. “Having the ability to provide an alternative for countries that allows us to help them make investments in their own futures, their own economies, is really critical,” Shaheen said.
She said in her travels to other countries around the world, when the discussion turns to trade, their preference is to trade with the United States.
“I was in Latin America last year. We visited four countries — Panama, Colombia, Argentina and Brazil. And everywhere we went, they said, ‘We want to do business with the United States. We would rather do business with the United States than with China, because you’re a better partner,’” she said.
She said the same was even true when she visited Vietnam, an authoritarian state ruled by the Communist Party of Vietnam, which expressed a preference for the U.S. as a trade partner over China.
“They talked about their new strategic partnership with the United States and how pleased they were, and they also talked about their concerns about China and their territorial waters,” Shaheen said.
It is the USTDA, she said, that will partner with U.S. companies to create the infrastructure that can then lead to the creation or expansion of trade.
“Part of every single initial undertaking in a country, for us very much, involves partnering with the project sponsors on the ground, the people who are going to build and implement these large infrastructure projects,” Ebong said.
A USTDA fact sheet shows a total of eight USTDA suppliers in New Hampshire, accounting for $5.88 million in total exports to USTDA supported projects. “And that’s good for business in New Hampshire. It’s good for those small businesses,” Shaheen said.
“One of the things I learned early on about trade is that those trade jobs tend to pay more. They tend to be more recession-proof. They tend to have better benefits,” she added.
There are numerous examples of USTDA’s efforts around the globe. It partnered with Jordan to digitize and expand health care services, and funded a feasibility study for a comprehensive cancer treatment center in Nigeria. It supported increased water access in Northern Brazil, and helped Morocco improve food safety. It helped Colombia improve aviation safety.
Ebong spoke specifically about the deployment of small modular reactors to produce clean nuclear-powered electricity in Romania. With the help of groundwork laid by the USTDA, Romania is contracting with Oregon-based NuScale Power to provide SMR technology and decommission a coal-fired plant.
“This project brought in the Romanian government, the U.S. government, the private sector that contributed. It’s a whole conversation of partners to get this off the ground and get this going. So partnership is critical,” Ebong said.
Sustainability is an important component to any USTDA partnership, according to Ebong. She said every project includes training “so that they could sustain this investment. That is a critical difference with some of our competitors. We believe in the sustainability of the investment.”
Another important element in those partnerships is the inclusion of women, according to both Ebong and Shaheen.
“Countries that empower women tend to be more stable because women give back more to their families, to their communities, and usually to their countries, than men,” said Shaheen, with a nod of apology to the men in the audience. “Making sure that we have opportunities for women across the world is really important. It’s important for our foreign policy, it’s important for our economic future, and it’s important for the countries that we’re working with to ensure that women have those opportunities.”
Ebong said the USTDA endeavors to make sure “that those who are giving us advice are not only small businesses, but female-owned businesses as well. That number I’m determined to do better at. It’s about 21 to 22% of the value of our contracts that are led by women, and I think we can do far better.”
While the discussion was void of partisan politics, the panel was asked a question about how people, especially young people, can better involve themselves in world affairs.
Shaheen took the opportunity to note that many State Department appointees by President Joe Biden, including ambassador level positions, are still awaiting confirmation in the U.S. Senate.
“Right now we have multiple ambassadorial nominees who are on hold because there are various senators who don’t want to appoint ambassadors because they don’t want to allow the administration currently to have any people in place,” Shaheen said.
“And it’s important for us to point out that this is not about whether you’re a Republican or a Democrat,” she said. “This is about what is in the best interest of the United States, and making sure that we have diplomats on the ground who can defend America’s interests and countries around the world is absolutely critical. And I’ll guarantee you that the People’s Republic of China is not having those debates.”
