THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | JUNE 2025 43 of our total agricultural export value. The other half is made up of high-value, consumer-oriented products that fill containers and come from across the country—apples from Washington state, barbecue sauce from Missouri, ground turkey meat from Minnesota, Oreo cookies from New Jersey. And key to selling these products overseas are trade shows and trade missions. FAS “endorses” some 30 trade shows around the world every year. In foreign countries, we support U.S. exhibitors through financial partnerships with trade associations that help reimburse some of the costs associated with participating in the trade show. FAS also groups all U.S. exhibitors in one section of the trade show floor to take advantage of economies of scale for pricing and marketing—it’s easier to find U.S. products when you know all the Americans are in one place. If you’ve never been to a food trade show, it is something to behold. Picture a couple of side-by-side airplane hangars filled with 10 ft. x 10 ft. stalls, each of which houses a food or beverage company hawking their wares, looking for new customers, and keeping up with current clients. FAS also endorses a handful of food trade shows in the U.S. every year, sometimes buying plane tickets to send foreign buyers to those shows. These buyers often would not have attended the U.S. trade show without FAS financial support, maybe staying at home or maybe accepting a more generous offer from another agricultural export competitor or the European Union (EU), which outspends the U.S. government by a wide margin in promotion of their food and beverage exports. Some studies have shown that the EU, for instance, outspends the United States by a margin of 4:1. Whether the United States ever attempts to match competitors dollar-for-dollar in promoting agricultural exports is FAS employees get up every day to keep U.S. agricultural products flowing into foreign markets.
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy ODIyMDU=