[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 159 (2013), Part 2]
[Senate]
[Pages 2888-2890]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                              JOB CREATION

  Mr. COONS. Mr. President, I rise today to reflect on how we can do 
what we so often say we want to do here in the Senate, and that is to 
help grow our American economy, to help create jobs for people from our 
home States and from all across our country.
  Yesterday, in my State of Delaware, I cohosted with my congressional 
colleagues a job fair--a job fair where 1,300 people showed up. They 
showed up early, stayed late, and interviewed for jobs with dozens of 
employers. It was a personal reminder of how many people in my home 
State and across this great country of ours continue to look for work 
in this recovery that is still too slow. It is a reminder that one of 
our core challenges in the government is to do what we can to create an 
environment of opportunity and an environment of economic growth where 
the people we work for have a shot at a better job.
  One of the things I think we can do is to seize opportunities in the 
global markets, because 95 percent of consumers worldwide actually live 
beyond our borders. As the chair of the Subcommittee on Africa, on the 
Senate Foreign Relations Committee, I wanted to take some time today to 
draw the attention of those in this Chamber and those who watch us 
around the country to the enormous opportunity presented by the 
continent of Africa.
  Too often the impression of Africa in the American media and in the 
popular

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imagination is one that focuses on crises--on very real humanitarian or 
security crises--in a few countries such as Somalia or Mali or Congo. 
The average American, the average Member of this Chamber, often 
overlooks a changed reality in the last decade--a decade in which 6 of 
the 10 fastest growing economies on Earth were in sub-Saharan Africa. 
In fact, studies show in the decades to come that number will simply 
increase to seven.
  So what are we to make of all this opportunity in Africa? There are 
some Fortune 500 companies--well-known household names such as Coca-
Cola, Caterpillar, DuPont-Pioneer--that have seen this opportunity and 
are taking advantage of it. They have recognized a vast and rapidly 
growing middle class in countries such as Nigeria, Chad, Ethiopia, and 
Rwanda--not exactly household name countries and not exactly countries 
the average American thinks of as having great world markets. But these 
companies have penetrated these markets and have recognized the 
opportunity that lies within.
  It is important they have done that in no small part with help from 
the U.S. Government. But as I held two hearings last year on this 
subcommittee, and we met--the folks who work with me and myself--with 
folks from think tanks and from companies and embassies, we realized we 
could do this better; we could be more streamlined, more targeted, and 
more focused in the work we are doing to take advantage of this 
remarkable opportunity.
  It is also, frankly, in our strategic national interest for us to do 
a better job of promoting U.S.-Africa trade, because as African 
economies grow, it promotes free markets, democratic values, good 
governance, and stability in African countries. And by ensuring these 
countries and the regions are stable and economically vibrant, we 
reduce the number of times we are drawn into humanitarian crises or 
security crises and we improve the lot of hundreds of millions of 
Africans who then go on in a virtuous cycle of building their trade 
relationships with us.
  As I have heard time after time, it takes firsthand personal 
engagement, it takes trade missions, it takes being there in person to 
grasp the scope of the opportunities and to respond to them 
responsibly. To do that well, it takes American diplomats and American 
representatives there on the ground.
  I won't soon forget meeting with a head of state in West Africa on a 
trip with another Senator last year, and he asked us why America isn't 
more present; why we don't send more trade delegations. He said, the 
Brazilians were here last week, the Indians are coming next week, and 
the Chinese practically live here. As I have learned in the past year, 
we are not doing enough as a country, as a government, as a Congress to 
promote investments and to see this opportunity for what it is.
  Well, others have seen the opportunity and have seized it. Just to 
pick one, China has actually exceeded the United States in terms of its 
total amount of exports to Africa of just a few short years ago. It has 
rocketed past us. The amount of foreign direct investment, the amount 
of export and import sales between China and Africa has grown 
dramatically. In fact, it has grown far more rapidly than the United 
States. Even though we have longstanding and positive relationships, I 
fear we will wake up and discover that China has secured long-term 
contracts that lock in their interests for decades and lock out 
American companies, American employers, and American interests.
  The World Bank recently predicted Africa is on the verge of a 
takeoff, much as we saw happen in the Pacific Rim or in India or in 
Central America over the last 20 years. In my view, we have to engage 
now. When we grow our exports to parts of the world such as Africa, it 
grows American jobs and high-quality jobs. Every billion dollars in 
exports we send overseas supports another 5,000 U.S. jobs. Last year, 
U.S. exports overseas supported more than 7 million jobs.
  I salute the initiative of the President and the Department of 
Commerce which are focused on trying to do more business with Africa, 
and to do it more wisely. But, frankly, we need to do more. So as 
chairman of the Subcommittee on Africa of the Foreign Relations 
Committee, along with my friend and partner in the last Congress, 
Senator Johnny Isakson of Georgia, I convened a series of hearings to 
focus on U.S. economic statecraft in Africa, to gather data, to have 
conversations, and to learn the facts about what we need to do to be 
more competitive.
  I have released a report today called ``Embracing Africa's Economic 
Potential,'' which offers concrete recommendations to the U.S. 
Government--actions we can take right now, often in partnership with 
our private sector and with African governments, to strengthen our 
trade relationship between the United States and the countries of sub-
Saharan Africa. Anyone interested can download a copy at 
coons.senate.gov/africa. Our report makes six recommendations, none of 
which involves spending a single dime of additional taxpayer money. In 
fact, it recommends ways to use what money we already spend on 
exploring and expanding into the market of Africa more efficiently and 
more effectively. So let's look at the recommendations in the report.
  First, it suggests we work with our African partners to remove 
barriers to trade. Trade is impeded in Africa by everything from poor 
governance, unreliable infrastructure, complex tariffs, to corruption. 
There are solutions the United States has already offered and there are 
efforts already underway by American businesses in partnership with our 
African partners. In particular, USAID has set up regional trade hubs 
that have done great work in breaking through barriers to growing 
regional trade. But we can and should do more.
  Second, reauthorize and strengthen the African Growth and Opportunity 
Act, better known as AGOA, in advance of its expiration in 2015. This 
legislation has been hugely successful in promoting African exports 
into the American market and in building mutually reinforcing 
relationships between the United States and the continent. I think we 
can do even more to create jobs both in the United States and Africa by 
diversifying products covered by AGOA, by improving its utilization by 
African countries, by ensuring its benefits are mutually beneficial 
between our country and Africa, and by not waiting until the 11th hour 
to act on reauthorization.
  Senator Isakson, and many in this Chamber, worked very hard to secure 
reauthorization of the third country fabric provision of AGOA last 
year, but it took longer than it should have and it was more difficult 
than it needed to be. It is my hope, working together with colleagues 
here and in the House, we can get a jump on this in advance of 2015.
  The third recommendation is to improve coordination between the many 
U.S. Government agencies working on trade policy to develop a 
comprehensive strategy for investment in sub-Saharan Africa. As many as 
10 different Federal agencies are responsible for parts of trade policy 
and international development. So making sure they are working together 
efficiently is a good way for us to ensure success.
  Fourth, we need to increase the presence of the U.S. Foreign 
Commercial Service in critical areas in the region. This chart shows 
those countries that have the fastest growing economies, and these are 
the few places where we have representatives from USAID or from the 
Department of Commerce.
  In short, my point is there are many countries that have strongly 
growing economies where we have no representation. We have, in fact, 
zero U.S. Foreign Commercial Service officers in five of the six 
countries listed here as having the fastest growing economies. In fact, 
we only have six officers in all of sub-Saharan Africa, compared with 
significantly higher numbers in Asia and elsewhere.
  I am concerned the reason for this is that Commerce isn't forward 
looking in its resource allocation and doesn't

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see the scale of the opportunities in Africa. Although I was grateful 
that Acting Secretary Blank made a trade mission trip to Africa late 
last year, that was the first time in a decade a U.S. Secretary of 
Commerce had made a visit to the continent, and there is much more we 
need to do.
  Our fifth recommendation is to bolster support for the agencies that 
finance and support U.S. commercial engagement overseas, particularly 
in Africa. These agencies, the Export-Import Bank--known as Ex-Im--and 
the Overseas Private Investment Corporation, known as OPIC--issue 
political risk insurance and help with financing, particularly 
financing to markets where they don't yet have a robust banking sector 
and where the rule of law is less certain. These agencies are smart 
investments that actually generate real returns for American taxpayers 
and contribute to the bottom line for the American Federal Government.
  Our sixth and last recommendation is to engage the community of 
African-born individuals who now live in the United States--the so-
called diaspora communities--to strengthen economic ties. Who better to 
serve as an American representative of the system, and who better to 
take on the spirit of entrepreneurship and penetrate African markets 
than those born, raised, or connected to African countries and who have 
been educated in the United States and have been successful here and 
now have the resources and opportunity to reconnect with their 
countries of origin or the countries of their families. We can and must 
do more to strengthen these resources, and I was pleased to get a 
chance to speak at the second annual diaspora conference hosted by the 
Department of State last year. It is my hope we will invest further in 
this untapped resource--something that distinguishes the United States 
from our competitors in other parts of the world who do not have the 
blessing of a strong diaspora community as we do.
  So in short, each of these six recommendations will get us closer to 
our goal of a more vibrant, a faster growing and more sustainable U.S.-
Africa trade relationship. But the key to implementing these 
recommendations in an integrated way is to listen to each other, to 
embrace them, and move forward across the several committees of 
jurisdiction, across the 10 different Federal agencies and entities, 
and to develop a coordinated plan for taking advantage of this 
remarkable part of the world that can also grow American jobs.
  We have an opportunity to seize this moment and to promote economic 
engagement, to strengthen the American economy and to advance the 
values of freedom and democracy around the world. Make no mistake, 
though, today we are falling short. We are failing to grasp this 
opportunity as strongly and clearly as our competitors are. We can act 
on a number of smart legislative proposals, including the Increasing 
American Jobs Through Greater Exports to Africa Act, which I 
cosponsored in the last Congress along with Senators Durbin and 
Boozman, and which I hope we will reintroduce shortly to establish a 
comprehensive U.S. strategy for public-private investment, trade, and 
development in sub-Saharan Africa. At the same time, the administration 
can, and I hope will, do more to coordinate strategy and use our 
resources effectively.
  The report we have issued today I hope will be seen as a wake-up 
call. If we fail, we will wake up 10 years from now and we will see 
jobs and opportunities we might have grasped taken by our competitors. 
It is my hope we will not watch these opportunities pass us by but 
will, instead, take advantage of this remarkable moment and this great 
opportunity.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a 
quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Coons). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.

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