The Foreign Service Journal, May 2023

THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | MAY 2023 55 Since the end of the Cold War, federal law (22 U.S.C. 2452b) has limited the State Department’s ability to spend appropriated funds on a pavilion, and financing U.S. participation in expos has proved challenging. The U.S. did not participate at all in the 2000 world’s fair in Hannover, and in 2001 it withdrew from the Bureau of International Expositions (BIE), the intergovernmen- tal organization that administers and certifies six-month-long world’s fairs every five years and shorter-duration specialized international exhibitions in between. Congress viewed a U.S. pavilion as a private-sector responsibility, ignoring the public diplomacy angle and the prevailing practice of other govern- ments that provided public financing. With the 1999 merger of USIA into the State Department, ECA assumed responsibility for participation in world’s fairs, but without federal funding it remained a non-priority. For Expo 2015 Milan, ECA delegated authority to the regional bureau, continuing a regional bureau rotational arrangement that has hampered delivery (see Beatrice Camp’s Speaking Out, “Neglect- ing World’s Fairs Does Not Make Them Go Away, So Let’s Do It The SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket replica at the USA Pavilion at Expo 2020 Dubai. USAPAVILIONEXPO2020DUBAI