DEPUTY SECRETARY LANDAU: Thank you so much. It's such a pleasure for me to be here today. On behalf of Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who's traveling today with President Trump, and on behalf of the American people, I'd like to express my gratitude and excitement for your participation in this year's SelectUSA Investment Summit.
I'd also like to thank Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick for inviting me to speak today and extend my congratulations on putting together this terrific event. And thanks to all of you for coming here. Secretary Lutnick's leadership and strength at the Department of Commerce has already proven invaluable for the American economy.
The exceptional speakers and programming at this event underscore the sheer scale of economic and commercial opportunity that exists in the United States. Since the first Investment Summit in 2011, SelectUSA has attracted thousands of international companies and economic development representatives, generating over $135 billion in new investment projects across the United States and its territories. This success reflects the economic opportunities in our country and shows the importance of your investment in driving our prosperity and hopefully yours, too.
America's openness to foreign investment and commerce is a longstanding part of our tradition as a nation. As Alexander Hamilton, one of our founding fathers and now perhaps more well-known as the subject of the musical Hamilton, said over 230 years ago in his famous report on manufacturers, and I quote: "[E]very farthing of foreign capital, which is laid out in… industrious establishments of a permanent nature, is a precious acquisition… [and] will [ultimately] prove a rich mine of prosperity to [our] country." I believe Hamilton was correct then and he remains correct now.
Let me talk a little bit about our State Department efforts. As mentioned, I'm the deputy secretary of state, so my job is to make sure that the State Department plays an important role in attracting people like you and opportunities like those that you're here to discuss today: foreign investment. Right now, we stand at a pivotal moment in American economic history. Through his historic and decisive actions on rebalancing global trade policy, deregulation, and tax cuts, President Trump is sending a clear message: It's time to invest in America. Nowhere is this revolution clearer than in our foreign policy, where we're making commercial investment a top priority.
I am here to tell you today, under President Trump, the principal objective of our foreign policy is not to harangue foreign nations about so-called soft international norms or encourage virtue signaling but to secure real results for American businesses and American workers. To countries around the world, here is my message: We're an administration you can do business with. We are open for business.
This is not only a focus in Washington. The State Department, where I work, has over 1,000 commercial officers stationed at our embassies around the world on every continent. These embassies are our crown jewels as a department, providing us the competitive advantage that we seek in almost every country in the world. We've made it clear to our economic officers their number one priority, day-in and day-out, must be to help us build our commercial and economic ties with countries around the world. Our worldwide missions stand ready to help foreign businesses and investors partner with American public and private sector counterparts to leverage our leading companies, technology, and workforce.
In fact, it really gives me great pride to say that this year we have 15 chiefs of mission who traveled with their delegations to SelectUSA - so our ambassadors and chargé d'affaires from 15 of our key posts all around the world. I hope to see that number doubled for this event next year. That's what we're going to be working on. It's my personal goal to make sure that our embassy teams are an economic force that increase economic and commercial ties with countries around the globe. And I know how this works.
During the first Trump Administration, I was the American ambassador to Mexico, a country that has significant investments in our country, just as the American companies have significant investments in Mexico. So I saw firsthand how foreign investment really impacts the United States. In fact, I remember in March 2020, just when the pandemic was beginning, I was supposed to be traveling with a Mexican delegation to open a major bottling company in Texas that was a Mexican investment. Because I think it's very important to highlight for the American people the value of foreign investment. We want to support those of you who are coming from foreign countries to invest in our country and underscore to the American people how valuable it is to have foreign investment in our country and how grateful we are for those of you from around the world who do invest in our country.
So we urge you to work with our missions and let - and make sure they work with you to identify investment opportunities in the United States. And if you have investment opportunities in your country that would benefit from investment from the United States's worldclass capital markets, let us know. Commercial diplomacy is a two-way street.
And let me just say that this is also very personal to me. I'm standing here today as the deputy secretary of state, but I'm also standing here as the son of a commercial - as - of a professional career diplomat who started his career in the Foreign Service in the late 1950s as the commercial officer at the U.S. Embassy in Montevideo, Uruguay. So my father was 37 years old when he heard about a program to bring in people with business experience into the State Department, mid-career people, and he thought that would be a great honor.
He was involved - he had been involved in the export-import business for about a decade, since the end of the Second World War, between the U.S. and Latin America mostly. And by the mid-1950s, he was living Cali, Colombia and particularly working with Chrysler to sell Chrysler cars in Colombia. And President Eisenhower thought it was important to bring in people who actually had experience in the private sector into the State Department to promote commercial diplomacy. And I kind of - I say a lot of kids bond with their fathers over sports and cars, but my father was never interested in those things, so he would bond with me by telling me about commercial diplomacy. That's going to seem hard to believe, but it's maybe one of the reasons that I'm here today, and I guess I'm a little bit of an outlier.
But he always said, frankly, that a good ambassador - and he later became ambassador to three countries in South America. He said a good ambassador is, first and foremost, a good commercial attaché, and I took that very much to heart. So again, it is really with great pleasure that I'm here today to address you.
Let me just finally discuss why the United States is really a destination of choice for foreign direct investment. I think we're all familiar with President Trump's emphasis on making the United States an even more attractive place to invest. There - now is an even better time than ever to invest in the United States. We welcome job-creating investment and support maintaining an open investment environment that can benefit our economy and yours. Nobody is asking you to do something that is not in your economic interest. The key is always finding things that benefit you, economic opportunities that benefit you, and benefit us. So let's work on finding those win-win solutions.
The United States - I don't think this is going to be any secret to those of you who are here - remains the most stable investment destination for foreign companies. Our capital markets are the highest performing and most liquid. Our rule of law is fair and just. And our businesses are dynamic and innovative. Kearney's 2025 Foreign Direct Investment Confidence Index, a survey of the top corporate senior executives in the world, rank the United States as the top destination for foreign direct investment for the 13th consecutive year, and that gives us great pride.
We want your investment, so please tell us what it will take. We look forward to inking many more investment deals this year and creating many more partnerships that are mutually beneficial and will lead to strong returns for your businesses and countries as well as ours.
In closing, let me just say that in the first 100 days of this administration, President Trump has secured over $9 trillion in commitments from foreign investors. He's committed to strengthening domestic capacity in sectors like advanced technology, critical minerals, energy, and manufacturing. His unwavering commitment to revitalizing American industry will reinforce the United States as a global leader in innovation and economic growth and make the United States and our partners more prosperous.
Again, this is one of the things that has - that drove him to run for office. He was already a very wealthy man, had a great life. He didn't need to do this. One of the reasons that he wanted to do this is he looked at the decline of a lot of indicators in our country, the decline of manufacturing. He says it doesn't have to be this way. And one of the things that we are trying to do to reverse some of these negative trends, that he ran for office to combat, is precisely to welcome foreign investors like you.
The President's also cutting red tape through executive orders to create opportunities for international investors to partner with us. I really do hope that you'll capitalize on this golden opportunity to invest or expand your investment in our beloved country.
So again, thank you for being here. Thank you for considering the United States for your investments. I believe every investment is not only a business opportunity but a diplomatic one, too. Thank you very much. (Applause.)
