18 SEPTEMBER 2018 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL Business Council Calls for Diplomatic Backup On June 26, the president of the Business Council for International Understanding, Peter Tichansky, sent a letter to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo urging him to put more diplomats in the field to help U.S. businesses compete worldwide. A nonpartisan organization with 200 member companies, BCIU aims to expand international trade and commerce by assisting its members to engage internationally. The letter states: “Since President Eisenhower established BCIU in 1955, we have worked to strengthen embassy effectiveness in leveling the playing field overseas—ensuring contracts are honored, improving government procurement processes and generally bolstering the rule of law so American companies can compete and win. “We have always counted on State Foreign Service officers, along with their Foreign Commercial Service counterparts, to bring the full weight of the embassies to bear when host governments or government-backed businesses fail to honor contracts or engage in back-room deals to unfairly cut out competition. “We agree with the president’s introduction to the National Security Strategy: the U.S. faces a dangerous and complex world, filled with a wide range of threats that have intensified in recent years. We see it every day in business—our companies face very sharp global competition, and our competitors often don’t always play by the same rules as we do. … “We need more backup, so we are writing to you to see if you would consider sending more diplomats to help level the playing field. We know that the American Foreign Service Association has been advocating putting more American diplomats in the field—shifting positions that are now in Washington to overseas embassies to fight for our businesses. BCIU would like to strongly endorse this common-sense idea. “Our members tell us that their private sector and government customers abroad want more American business, not less; more American investment, not less. They want reliability and quality, and they want businesses that operate fairly. American business can answer that demand, but to do so they need to be able to count on fully staffed embassies to help remove the impediments that keep them from doing business abroad. … “Mr. Secretary, we want to help you deliver on your vision, and that includes giving our companies every fair advantage around the world—including getting more of our diplomats in the field, working for American prosperity, our businesses and our values.” Facebook Live Event Goes Horribly Wrong Someone on the State Department’s social media team wasn’t thinking about the bigger picture when they decided to schedule a Facebook Live Q&A session on traveling with children overseas titled “Family Travel Hacks” on June 19—at the same time as the Trump administration was under fire for separating migrant families at the border and locking the children up in detention centers in an effort to deter people from trying to cross our southern border. Some 2,300 children were separated from their families. The event, moderated by the wellintentioned “Carl and Kim” from the Bureau of Consular Affairs, was meant to answer questions for U.S. citizen parents planning to travel abroad with their children this summer. A State Department official told The Hill that the campaign was part of a “seasonal outreach campaign,” but it came across as particularly tone-deaf. The moderators weren’t prepared for the onslaught of questions such as “When travelling can we pick which size cage we want our children to be jailed in?” and “I have a 4-month-old. What sort of work will he be prescribed when taken into the camp? His skills include rolling over,” and “While in your camp, will the children learn a trade...like picking veggies or digging ditches?”—along with hundreds of other comments like those posted to Facebook and Twitter ahead of and during the session. The administration backed off the practice of separating families following a June 26 court order requiring officials to stop detaining parents apart from minor children and to reunify those who have been separated. A federal judge in San Diego ruled that all families must be reunited within 30 days of that ruling and by July 10 if the children are younger than 5. These deadlines proved impossible to meet; as of mid-August, the government had reunited hundreds of children with parents, but it was still struggling to locate all parents and children who had been separated.
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