Letter from the Co-Chairs

Local governments—city, state, county, and tribal—are at the center of solving the transnational challenges America faces today. From climate change to pandemic response and recovery, local governments make decisions that affect constituents’ daily lives in order to keep their communities safe, prosperous, and thriving. The solutions they create are models for how to build a more sustainable, resilient, and equitable future because they are informed by and meet the needs of the residents they serve.

Local leaders and their communities seek increasing global engagement: to learn from and partner with foreign cities; advocate for shared values and international commitments; and bring home tangible benefits. This is diplomacy, but it is not yet a part of America’s diplomatic toolkit.

We call on the U.S. Department of State to strengthen ties with local governments across America, including by establishing and appropriately funding an Office of City and State Diplomacy.

On city and state diplomacy, America is playing catch-up. Cities and territorial governments throughout Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Americas are more engaged in foreign policy than their counterparts in the United States. Cities throughout China have dozens of staff—Shanghai has approximately 100—dedicated to building bilateral and network relationships around the world.

Other countries have departments in their foreign ministries to support subnational governments in their diplomacy or detail foreign ministry personnel to their cities, as is true in Seoul, Paris, Rome, Montreal, Buenos Aires, and Tokyo. Local governments in many countries receive considerable funding from their foreign ministries to develop programs and host international conferences that boost their influence, local economies, and the soft power of their cities, and therefore their nations. National leaders regularly address these gatherings.

American cities and states have a massive store of soft power, but the United States has yet to build connections across our federal structure to advantage our foreign policy. This Task Force report proposes actions to change that. It starts by recognizing that a foreign policy informed by all corners of our nation will be stronger and more inclusive, and demonstrating that American global leadership directly benefits our communities.

The good news is that cities and states have not waited for the federal government. Many have active and creative global engagements that generate jobs, solve problems, celebrate culture, strengthen key relationships, and create life-changing opportunities for young people. This report suggests ways for the U.S. Department of State and our local governments to work together to craft a foreign policy that draws on the talent, innovation, and diversity of our nation. The challenges we face as a global community demand that we work together. That collaboration should start at home.

Letter from Truman Center President & CEO

There is a new multilateralism growing within the United States and around the world. Brought together by shared principles and goals, city and state governments are engaging with their global counterparts and participating in advocacy and action. These subnational relationships are expanding to provide opportunities for diplomacy where national engagement has stalled or remains tense. Across America, cities, states, counties, and tribal governments are participating in international affairs, to the benefit of their constituents, the nation, and the world.

The Truman Center for National Policy is proud to support this trend, and to do so alongside our sister organization, the Truman National Security Project, which includes mid- to senior-career national security professionals in the State Department, city governments, state governments, as well as everywhere in between. We engage decisionmakers with the understanding that it is a national security imperative to broaden diplomatic engagement and build U.S. foreign policy with a focus on diversity, action, and thought leadership. We believe that the path to expanding the foreign policy constituency begins by connecting Washington to city and state governments on the front lines of addressing transnational threats and bilateral opportunities. That is why, in 2021, Truman launched the Transforming State: Pathways to a More Equitable, Just, and Innovative Institution report, which provides bold recommendations for how the State Department must transform into a more equitable institution, and stresses deepened coordination with city and state governments across the United States.

As the United States works to end the global democratic recession, cities offer powerful examples of democracies delivering results to people in real time—a lesson for national governments to shorten the distance between policy and impact. We know too that global cities, like Budapest, can be effective antigens to authoritarian national governments and important sources of democratic resilience amidst periods of intense polarization.

To expand this work, Truman Center welcomed Erin Bromaghim as Visiting Senior Fellow on City and State Diplomacy to spearhead the City and State Diplomacy Task Force. This Task Force, comprising Truman members and experts from across the U.S. leading in the scholarship and practice of city and state diplomacy, informed this report’s recommendations on how the federal government can craft a foreign policy by the people and for the people.

This report is the product of many hands. I’d like to extend a word of gratitude to all those who contributed to its production—especially our Task Force members and co-chairs—and to our sponsors and partners at the Open Society Foundations.

Here at Truman, we are embarking on a path to expand the foreign policy constituency and ensure that diplomacy serves all Americans. This report is just the beginning.

Sincerely,

Jenna Ben-Yehuda
President and CEO
Truman Center for National Policy

The connections that cities and states make around the world should not be surprising—a plethora of issues  affect all communities regardless of borders or governmental hierarchy. State, city, and other local officials engage in diplomacy to address these and other constituent concerns. They are making public commitments to advance progress on international policy agreements such as the Paris Agreement and the Sustainable Development Goals. They are exchanging lessons and collectively advocating with other local and regional governments around the world on a broad range of topics, such as public safety, air quality, gender equity, welcoming migrants, climate change and public health. They are entering into bilateral and multilateral agreements, joining subnational networks, and sending and receiving delegations on a regular basis.

State and city officials are taking these steps in intentional and strategic ways to advance their own interests and make life better for their constituents. They undertake these international efforts based on a deep knowledge of local needs. Their international engagement can be faster, more pragmatic, less partisan, and more results-oriented than national policy toward foreign entities. In the process, cities and states are acquiring insights and developing relationships that could be vital to keeping the United States safe, prosperous and democratically vibrant.

The 2021 U.S. National Intelligence Council’s most recent Global Trends report, issued every four years to synthesize and share key trends observed throughout the intelligence community, points to subnational activity globally:

City and state diplomacy adds value for cities, states, and the people who live there. The relationships developed can offer diverse connections abroad and expand the pool of informal diplomats, both of which present incredible opportunities for the federal government. Yet there is no structure or cadence by which cities and states and the U.S. Department of State confer on issues of international engagement, diplomacy, or foreign policy.

While some local government officials leading city and state diplomacy have experience working for the federal government, they lack official channels through which they can communicate their actions and inform U.S. foreign policy and programs based on their experiences and relationships. They also lack adequate resources to maximize their engagement on the global stage. Still other cities and states lack a blueprint on how to get started.

Building the State Department’s connections to cities and states, as well as the capacity for more cities and states to engage in diplomacy, will require resources. The annual budget of the U.S. Department of Defense is nearly thirteen times that of the U.S. Department of State. Those who support spending on defense often point to the costs of supporting an all-volunteer, professional military and sustaining a competitive, innovative industrial base as justification. An investment in diplomacy can offer a parallel return on investment in strengthening national security and advancing not only national interests, but also by providing concrete benefits for residents right where they live.

The Defense budget endures because its benefits—education, jobs, innovation, national pride —are felt across the United States.

To deliver a more inclusive approach to diplomacy—one that resonates with the diverse lived experiences of all Americans—the United States should seek to engage with the world from the bottom up, aligning on shared action, values, and goals.

City and state governments around the United States benefit from foreign direct investment, international tourism, export markets, foreign students, and global supply chains. For its own benefit, the State Department must build up both its own capacity to engage with city and state governments, and the diplomatic capacity of those governments. This is not just about resources; it is about challenging the idea that U.S. diplomacy is a monopoly that can only emerge from embassies or Washington, D.C., and challenging the perception that a mayor or a governor’s time spent on international engagement doesn’t directly benefit their constituents and, in some cases, the country.

There are many reasons to support stronger ties between the U.S. State Department and city and state governments. First, in order to build a foreign policy that represents all of America, channels that connect to Americans from a diverse range of demographic, geographic, and socioeconomic backgrounds are crucial. Officials from the State Department engaging with U.S. states and cities can provide input to the States Department about the perspectives and needs of American constituents beyond the Beltway. Cities, states, and U.S. foreign policy benefit when the priorities of diverse communities are elevated to a national and international focus.

City and state diplomacy can be a force multiplier for the State Department and offer soft power, technical expertise, and connections to leaders outside of national governments. Likewise, the State Department can share innovations gleaned from abroad with cities and states. A nationwide universal basic income pilot, for example, was tried in Finland first. Mexico City had an earthquake early warning system before American cities and states. Copenhagen’s waste-to-energy plant is a promising model of improved energy efficiency. American cities and states can also provide technical assistance to foreign counterparts, on everything from zeroing emissions to “smart” city technology to urban air mobility.

The State Department should be plugged into city and state diplomacy so its diplomats can work alongside city and state officials to identify benefits, motives, and risks. Some global competitors are very active at the subnational level, and not all local leaders may have the bigger picture or recognize possibly subversive behavior. American allies are prioritizing building relationships at the subnational level as well, supporting useful connections and cooperation between American cities, states, and regions and their counterparts through initiatives like the European Union’s International Urban Cooperation program. Continuing to neglect both these risks and opportunities constitutes a compound cost for U.S. foreign policy.

Broader engagement nationwide will help the State Department recruit diverse talent, sorely needed in an institution that for too long did not look at all like America. Local leaders often know the best ways to reach their underrepresented communities and can become a new set of trusted voices to describe the ways in which foreign policy is important and useful.

It is important to acknowledge that skepticism—and many challenges—remain. In their January/February 2022 issue dedicated to subnational diplomacy, the Foreign Service Journal’s Editorial Board rightly surfaces several questions. How should the State Department effectively engage the panoply of subnational actors? Local governments sometimes deviate from the positions of the federal government. Federalism (and the U.S. Constitution) delineates both where the federal government has precedence and where subnational governments may act independently. Would alignment on particular issues mean certain communities are prioritized (or penalized) over others?

In addition to possible tensions over policy, scarce resources mean benefits of partnership must be clear to both sides. Without a vision, support, and plan that transcends election cycles, both sides may opt to work alone.

These are valid questions and real hurdles. The recommendations here do not challenge the constitutional primacy of the federal government in setting U.S. foreign policy, nor do they seek to curtail a city or state’s freedom to maneuver. Instead, this report asks how Washington can more effectively engage with city and state governments and their constituents to build a more participatory, more representative approach to diplomacy that collaboratively advances American national security and foreign policy objectives.

This report responds to that question by proposing a “how-to” from the vantage of three core stakeholder groups—the U.S. State Department; city and state governments; and civil society, specifically academic institutions, community-based organizations, and philanthropy—and offers recommendations for all three to take action.