Service to Businesses and Workers

Diplomats help build American prosperity by understanding foreign markets, eliminating barriers to trade, and identifying opportunities for our nation’s manufacturers and service providers. Foreign Service Officers promote American products overseas and ensure our companies and workers are treated fairly in other countries.

Photo on right: Aurelia “Rea” Brazeal promotes American products at a trade fair in the early 1980s during her tour as trade officer in the economic section of U.S. Embassy Tokyo. Courtesy of Rea Brazeal

Aurelia “Rea” Brazeal promotes American products at a trade fair in the early 1980s during her tour as trade officer in the economic section of U.S. Embassy Tokyo. Courtesy of Rea Brazeal

Building American Prosperity

Donald Gregg: Securing an Aircraft Deal in South Korea: U.S. Ambassadors are often asked to weigh in on a big sale to a host government, particularly when the companies feel they are facing unfair competition.

Karen Zens: Helping American Businesses Navigate Post-Soviet Russia: In the aftermath of the collapse of the Soviet Union, Washington DC native and Foreign Commercial Service Officer Karen Zens was assigned to Saint Petersburg, where she had studied some 20 years earlier.

Kitchen Debate (1959) | Wikimedia Commons

Ruth A. Davis at the State Department. Photo courtesy of AFSA.

A Subway franchise in Saint Petersburg. Public domain — A Subway franchise in Saint Petersburg.
Public domain

Gilbert Robinson: Soviet Trade Fairs and an Exclusive Deal for Pepsi: After growing up in New York City, Gilbert Robinson found himself at the heart of a unique moment of Cold War diplomacy when he traveled to Moscow in 1959 while serving as Special Assistant to the Under Secretary for the Department of Commerce.

Rea Brazeal: Restraining Japan’s Auto Exports to Save American Jobs: After growing up in Atlanta, Georgia, Aurelia “Rea” Brazeal earned degrees from both Spelman College and Columbia University, joining the Foreign Service in 1968. A decade later, she was assigned to Tokyo as an economic officer and given the troubled automotive portfolio.

Ruth A. Davis: Bringing the Olympic Games to Atlanta: Foreign Service Officer Ruth A. Davis played a pivotal behind-the-scenes role in bringing the 1996 Olympic Games to her hometown of Atlanta, blending diplomacy, strategy, and personal connection in what can only be described as a masterclass in “Olympics diplomacy.”