This week, Deputy United States Trade Representative Miriam Sapiro traveled to Tel Aviv, Israel to attend the 11th Annual Herzliya Conference. This Conference is traditionally launched by the President of the State of Israel and concluded by the Prime Minister, and brings together senior Israeli and international participants from the highest levels of government, business and academia to address policy issues in this region and around the world.
Ambassador Sapiro spoke on a panel entitled “Challenges to Global Economic Governance: Trade and Monetary Aspects,” where she highlighted the U.S. – Israel trade relationship, which consists of nearly $80 million in bilateral trade per day and is centered on the 25-year-old U.S. – Israel Free Trade Agreement. Noting that the U.S.-Israel economic partnership is “as critical as ever,” she called for renewed efforts to enhance our trade relationship and realize the FTA’s full potential. She also focused on regional and global efforts to expand trade and support jobs.
She said, “The need to grow our economies, create more jobs and resist the temptation to retreat into protectionism is more important than ever before. The modern G-20 was born of this crisis, but global economic governance is no longer the purview of any one organization, or in the hands of just a few countries. Rather, we have a joint responsibility to work together in different fora – globally, regionally and bilaterally – to find ways to enable all economies to grow and prosper, and to ensure that we have the right tools to do that.” The full text of her remarks is available here.
Other participants in Ambassador Sapiro’s session included Professor Stanley Fischer, Governor, Bank of Israel; Dr. José de Gregorio, Governor, Central Bank of Chile; Dr. Yossi Bachar, Chairman, Board of Directors, Bank Discount; and the Honorable Professor Giulio Tremonti, Minister of Finance and Economy of Italy. Participants were introduced by Major General Danny Rothschild, Director of the Institute for Policy and Strategy at IDC Herzliya, and Chair of the Annual Herzliya Conference Series. Mr. Guy Rolnick, Founder and Editor-in-Chief, TheMarker, and Deputy Publisher of Haaretz, moderated.
