BANGKOK – United States Trade Representative Katherine Tai today joined Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken for the handover of the APEC Ministerial Meeting to the United States. Ambassador Tai congratulated Thailand on its leadership during its host year and emphasized how the United States will continue to build on the momentum to prioritize sustainability and inclusion into APEC’s work on trade and investment.
Ambassador Tai’s remarks are below:
Thank you, Secretary Blinken.
Minister Jurin, Minister Don, I would like to congratulate Thailand on your leadership this year in taking our collective work forward. We are excited to be picking up the mantle to maintain momentum on APEC’s accomplishments when we host APEC in 2023.
I am a strong believer in APEC, in great part because of its non-binding, consensus-based foundation.
This makes APEC uniquely positioned to be a more creative, more innovative, and a more productive laboratory for ideas to help lead the way toward more responsible and more inclusive trade policies.
During our host year, we plan to lift up and energize existing avenues of work in APEC, and we plan on developing new efforts, in order to more meaningfully mainstream APEC’s prioritization of sustainability and inclusion into its ongoing work on trade and investment.
I hope you enjoy this video, which will give you just a taste of the rich cultural diversity that the United States has to offer. We are so excited to welcome all economies to the United States, and I personally look forward to hosting many of you in Detroit, Michigan, in May at the 2023 APEC Ministers Responsible for Trade meeting.
###