U.S. Rep. Young Kim (R-CA) introduced legislation recently that seeks to provide additional support for U.S. businesses abroad.
The Building Overseas Opportunities & Strategic Trade (BOOST) for American Business Act seeks to strengthen the U.S. State Department’s commercial diplomacy efforts by:
- Establishing a new specialized Foreign Service track that recruits officers with private-sector, financial, and business expertise to support American companies in overseas markets;
- Building a professional commercial diplomacy workforce trained in commercial advocacy, market access, trade barriers, and business intelligence;
- Expanding hiring authorities to recruit trade and economic experts and grow the commercial diplomacy workforce to 500 officers by 2028;
- Strengthening coordination between the Departments of State and Commerce to reduce duplication and better align America’s commercial diplomacy efforts abroad; and
- Elevating economic diplomacy as a national security priority and positioning the State Department to more aggressively advance U.S. economic interests overseas.
“U.S. businesses are competing for America on the world stage. They deserve a team that goes to bat for them,” Kim said. “The BOOST for American Business Act empowers our embassies to strategically advocate for American companies, open doors in foreign markets, and defend U.S. economic interests abroad. As Chair of the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on East Asia and the Pacific, I have seen firsthand that economic security is national security.”
American businesses competing in international markets often lack a strong advocate supporting them. The BOOST Act addresses that by building a team of economic officers at U.S. embassies around the world to open doors for American companies and advance U.S. economic interests.