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