Remarks at the U.S.-Spain Council
Remarks
Hillary Rodham Clinton
Secretary of State
Goldman Sachs Tower
Jersey City, NJ
June 24, 2012
Well it is truly my pleasure to join you. I
regret very much that I was unable to be with you at dinner last night,
but I thank the hosts for being willing to let me come this afternoon
to congratulate you on this, the 17th U.S.-Spain Council
Forum. I’ve been given an excellent report about all the activities by
His Royal Highness. And I welcome him and Her Royal Highness here back
to the United States. Also, all of our guests from the Spanish
Government, including the Spanish Minister of Transportation and
Infrastructure Development, Ana Pastor, and all of our colleagues. Let
me certainly thank my colleague in the Cabinet, Secretary Ray LaHood,
who has brought his experience and his passion to the work of
transportation and infrastructure to our country’s leadership, and I’m
very grateful to serve with him.
I also want to thank my long-time
friend and former colleague – I think it’s fair to say that Senator Bob
Menendez is truly one of the most effective, determined, dedicated
public servants in our country. He grew up not far from here, the son of
immigrants, and now serves representing this great state of New Jersey.
And he certainly deserves a lot of credit for the rise of Jersey City
as a financial center. I can’t say I was always pleased about him being
successful in convincing my constituents to set up shop across the
river, but I certainly admired his results. And he has led on so many of
the important economic issues on finance and foreign relations. And he
truly has his heart in strengthening the relationship between the United
States and Spain. So thank you, Bob.
Thanks also to Juan and
Pedro for their co-chairing and presidency of the U.S.-Spain Council.
And I understand that during the course of the meetings, you had my
other friend and another one of our former colleagues, Secretary Ken
Salazar, along with Under Secretary of Commerce for International Trade
Francisco Sanchez, Under Secretary of Treasury for International Affairs
Lael Brainard, and Assistant Secretary Jose Fernandez, who works with
me at the State Department in this area of economic and business that we
call economic statecraft.
This, for me, is a great personal
honor. I believe so strongly, as does the Obama Administration, that the
relationship between Spain and the United States is a vital one – vital
to our economies, vital to our security, vital to our joint efforts to
advance stability and prosperity around the world. And I am also
personally very grateful for the excellent working relationship that we
have from Afghanistan to Latin America. There has been an increase, a
deepening, and broadening of our engagements in areas of concern to us
both, and we see the results of that.
Now we know that our ties date back centuries. His Royal Highness and I were just discussing that next year will be the 500th
anniversary of Ponce de Leon’s historic voyage to Florida. I think it’s
a wonderful opportunity to take stock of this 500–year-old relationship
and all that Spain and Hispanics have contributed to the growth and
success of our own country here in the United States. We have the
benefit of millions of people traveling back and forth as tourists, as
business leaders, as part of student exchanges, or simply to visit
family and friends. And for the many millions of Americans who seek
Spanish, Spain stands out as a favored destination to do business, to
learn, to really revel in the culture that is so highly regarded.
So
the bonds are strong, and I think it’s in our interest to do all we can
to make them even stronger. And I don’t say that lightly. I say it with
great conviction that the central focus of the U.S.-Spain Council on
expanding our economic relationship is critical to us both. And it is
also true that the deeper we go into cooperation on security and in
other areas, we will draw even closer together.
Now I don’t have
to tell any of you – and having been at the G-20 earlier in the week in
Mexico – that we meet at a time that is critical for Spain, Europe, the
United States, and the global economy. The United States is following
events in Europe very closely, first and foremost because you are our
allies and our partners. And we care deeply about your prosperity and
your security, your social fabrics. We want you to thrive, but also
because what happens in Europe has major consequences for what happens
here in the United States. After all, Europe is our largest trade and
investment partner. And Americans know that when demand for our products
drop in Madrid or Barcelona, that has effects in places like Milwaukee
or Baltimore.
So we stand firmly with the people of Spain and
Europe during this financial crisis. We fully recognize that the
decisions have to be made in Europe, but we have tried to be not only
concerned friends, but active partners in helping all of us navigate
through these challenging times. Let me also say that the United States
supports the Spanish Government’s approach to restoring confidence in
your economy through the recapitalization of the banking sector, fiscal
consolidation, and labor market reforms. We think these are all key to
achieving a more dynamic economy now and into the future. And we highly
commend Spain for beginning down this difficult path.
We know that
this crisis forces Europe’s leaders to make difficult choices, and to
balance short-term and long-term priorities, which are not always
perfectly aligned. And we have no doubt that Europe’s leaders understand
full well the seriousness of the choices they face and the urgent need
to act. We are looking forward to the European Council meeting in a few
days. And as Europe acts, the United States will have your back. We will
do all we can to evidence our strong support for these difficult
decisions.
Now this forum, obviously, is not the place where a lot
of these difficult decisions will be made. You cannot solve the
challenges that we face. But I do think that this council meeting,
coming at the moment that it does, can have a positive effect on the
economies of both our countries by, number one, raising the profile of
Spain and all that is right about and working well in and from Spain; by
demonstrating conclusively that a strong relationship between our two
countries; and by bringing together business leaders and top investors
and government officials who help shape the day-to-day economic
relationship between our two countries. We need to make a very clear
message through the media, through the meetings you’ve been having, that
we already are connecting by a rich flow of trade and investment. And
we’re looking to make it even more so.
I mean, just looking at the
numbers tells the stories. Since 2000, Spain has been one of the
fastest-growing sources of foreign direct investment in the United
States. In 2010, that investment stood at nearly 45 billion, making
Spain our 11th largest investor. Now much of that investment
has been in the green energy sector. Spanish companies are involved in a
number of significant green energy and infrastructure projects in the
United States, including a power company in Maine and a rail project in
New York. These projects will provide valuable services to Americans and
they also create jobs for Americans. As of 2008, which is the year for
which I could find the most recent employment data, more than 66,000
Americans were working for U.S. subsidies of Spanish-owned firms. So as
the Obama Administration works around the clock to create jobs for
American workers, Spain is a valuable contributor to that. And we are
glad that so many Spanish companies have already invested in the United
States, and we want more companies to do the same.
Now of course,
we want direct investment to grow in both directions. In 2010, U.S.
foreign direct investment in Spain reached nearly $60 billion. And now,
because of the reforms the Spanish Government is adopting, including
labor and financial sector reforms, a recent law cracking down on
internet piracy, progress on a new bilateral agreement on double
taxation, we think this will attract even more American businesses and
even more American direct investment.
Meanwhile, trade between our
countries is strong. The United States imported $11 billion in goods
from Spain last year. We exported nearly the exact same amount, 10.8
billion, which is up nearly 25 percent since President Obama launched
the National Export Initiative in 2010. We did that with the goal of
doubling U.S. exports by the end of 2014. If we were doing as well
everywhere else as we are doing with Spain, we would be even further
along toward achieving that goal.
But it is important to
recognize, as His Royal Highness and I were just discussing, there is
tremendous opportunity for Spanish firms, particularly in consumer
goods, in the U.S. market that is not being exploited. So I am strongly
urging all of you, especially with our large Hispanic population, to
take advantage of what we think could be a win-win for us both. And with
the 500th anniversary coming up, it would be, it seems to
me, a perfect opportunity for Spanish businesses to join together to do
some joint advertising about what Spain already is doing in the United
States, introduce some products, and make a case that this 500 years of
history has an equally bright future.
We want to make sure
everyone hears the message that we both are open for business. And we
know that the headlines out of Europe tend to inspire more questions
than confidence, but we think that confidence is well-merited. And yet,
we can’t just expect that to happen on its own. There had to be a
concerted effort to make the case. And the Spanish and American
Governments are committed to deepening our economic cooperation, making
it even easier to invest and trade. This is a top priority for me as
Secretary of State, and now one of our highest priorities in U.S.
foreign policy. More broadly, we’re focused on advancing what we call
economic statecraft, an effort to place economics at the heart of our
foreign policy, our priorities, our tools, and our strategies.
Now,
the reason for me is very simple. Our diplomacy must succeed in a world
where states increasingly exercise power in economic terms, and
diplomacy must do more to tend domestic economic sources of our
leadership abroad. Spain has great influence in Latin America. The
United States obviously has great influence in many places in the world.
But if we’re not strong at home economically, and if we don’t pursue
smart global economic policies, both of us will not have the same level
of influence in 10 years that we have today. And speaking from my
perspective, when I look at the need for democracy to spread, of our
values to be adopted and embraced around the world, what we can bring to
security and stability and prosperity, that would be a loss not only
for Spain and the United States, it would be a loss for the entire
world.
So our economic statecraft agenda includes working with all
of you, because we think that it’s not just between governments; it is
with our private sectors, our civil societies, academia, and other
strong pillars of both of our countries. We are elevating commercial
diplomacy, directing our embassies worldwide to focus more on developing
trade and investment. Through the new Select USA Initiative, we are
attracting more inbound foreign investment, and I know that our
ambassador, Ambassador Solomont, just recently held an excellent program
in Madrid to try to highlight this.
We’re also working closely
with the European Union. I think there is much more that the EU and the
U.S. can do together to unlock economic activity. The U.S.-EU High-Level
Working Group on Jobs and Growth just issued its interim report a few
days ago. It included an analysis of the benefits of opening our markets
to more goods, services, and investments; and crucially, it spoke to
the importance of promoting compatible regulations, tackling
behind-the-border barriers, and consulting on possible approaches to
intellectual property rights. A strong outcome to these discussions, if
achievable, can enhance not only transatlantic economic ties, but also
address shared market access challenges in third countries and
strengthen global rules and norms around non-tariff barriers and other
competitive issues, which are the most pressing challenges to
maintaining level playing fields worldwide.
In the meantime, we
are continuing to work through the Transatlantic Economic Council to
expand economic opportunities between the U.S. and the EU. When you look
at the money and effort both the U.S. and EU spend on regulation,
harmonizing regulatory regimes would save us both time, money, and
effort. Figuring out how we could agree on certain phytosanitary
standards; for example, the U.S. has a different way of testing shrimp
from Asia than the EU has. I would think there’s got to be a way we
could collaborate so that we both wouldn’t have to send out inspectors,
and we could have a standard that we were holding the world to anybody
who wanted to get into either of our markets would have to meet. So
these are the kinds of nitty-gritty practical issues that we are now
finally discussing with the EU that we think hold great promise for us
both economically.
And I want to also highlight another program of
Ambassador Solomont. Two months ago, he sent a letter to every U.S.
governor encouraging them to bring trade delegations to Spain. And
already Texas, Florida, and Puerto Rico have taken him up on the
suggestion, and Illinois will be sending a trade delegation to Spain
next week. And Spain has shown a similar reciprocal commitment. Just
this week in Boston, at BIO 2012, the world’s biggest biotech trade
show, Spain had the largest delegation of any foreign country. And I
have to tell you that that was really an exciting change for our biotech
companies to see what was happening in Spain and to have His Royal
Highness there along with the Royal Highness really highlighting the
advances Spain is making in its own biotech industry.
So the
interest is there, the ingenuity is there, the strong businesses, the
fundamental cooperation. Now we have to do our part by advocating for
smart policies, finding and forging more business partnerships, working
together more closely on relevant issues like harmonizing regulations
and protecting intellectual property, and telling everyone that will
listen that Spain and the United States are working together and open
for business.
This is a long-term effort. We think it bears fruit
immediately, but the real harvest will take some years to see. And we’re
working not only for this generation of leaders in both the public and
the private sector, but for those who will follow after. And it is
exciting to me to be here to thank all of you who understand the
importance of this relationship, are committed to furthering it, see
over the horizon what is possible, and will work together to realize the
very best possible outcome from this level of very high, important
cooperation. Thank you all very much.
