The Foreign Service Journal, July-August 2014

34 JULY-AUGUST 2014 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL counting was a protracted process, Banda acknowledged her defeat, and the rule of law has prevailed. Here is another example, from our consulate general in Basrah, where I recently completed a year of service as energy officer. One of our highest priorities is keeping Washington abreast of develop- ments in southern Iraq’s energy sector, where exports of more than 2.5 million barrels of oil per day account for 90 percent of the country’s total oil production and the vast majority of its national budget. Having built a wide-ranging net- work of active contacts in the energy sector, I was able to influence stake- holders both in and out of govern- ment. Our most recent analysis of southern Iraq’s oil sector summarized an entire year’s worth of field visits and data collection into a succinct argu- ment for Iraq’s need to hire an outside project management firm to meet its ambitious oil expansion plans. That reporting directly contributed to our leadership’s abil- ity to craft a set of policy recommendations to help stabilize Iraq’s economy and simultaneously ensure a less volatile world market for oil. Since joining the Foreign Service in 2005, Christopher Markley Nyce has served as an economic officer in London, Managua and Lilongwe. The Three Amigos: South Korea, Colombia and Panama Trade Agreements By Ivan Rios Embassy Windhoek To get the United States out of a deep recession, the Obama administration used many tools when it took office in 2009. It was a time of high unemployment and despair, of bailouts and stimulus packages. It was a time for the National Export Initiative and international trade to be added to the policy tool- box. And it was a time when trade agreements were awaiting congres- sional ratification, involving the three amigos: South Korea, Colombia and Panama. Economic and political reporting, without a doubt, advanced the cause of ratifying those pacts, which now benefit businesses large and small and people in many countries beyond the four signatories. In July 2010, I arrived in Bogota as the new trade officer. I had the good fortune to be at the right place at the right time. We wanted to do all we could do to persuade Congress to ratify the trade agreement between Colombia and the United States. But what could we do? U.S. President Barack Obama and Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos shake hands after a bilateral meeting at the margins of the Summit of the Americas in April 2012 in Cartagena, where they announced the Free Trade Agreement’s date of entry into force. Courtesy Embassy Bogota Unlike journalists, reporting officers must be perpetually building our network of contacts. —Christopher Markley Nyce