Transcript
Speaker: The appointment of Ambassador Nina Hachigian to lead the U .S. State Department's subnational diplomacy apparatus signals the Biden administration's embrace of cities as integral to American foreign policy, as well as its determination to make foreign policy tangible for the average citizen. It also comes at a moment when the role and importance of cities on matters of global import have never been more apparent.
Speaker: For Ambassador Hachigian, it's the continuation of work started as the country's first Deputy Mayor for International Affairs with then Mayor Eric Garcetti of Los Angeles. There, Hachigian was responsible for bolstering ties to key international partners, nurturing foreign investment in novel collaborations and critical sectors, furthering the city's climate agenda and sustainable development goals, encouraging youth participation in foreign service, and not least of all, establishing a blueprint for peer cities and successive administrations.
Speaker: Building such capacity for permanence at the national level is, as explained to us here, high on the ambassador's agenda at the State Department, where it's worth noting the mandate encompasses both city and state level priorities. And it would seem Chigian and her colleagues are off to a running start with a host of early accomplishments that includes the first time gathering of over 200 mayors from all around the Western Hemisphere in Denver last April.
Speaker: Nearly a year into her tenure, Achigian lets us in on the inaugural City Summit of the Americas and other Seminole State Department initiatives, explains why the Inflation and Reduction Act and subnational diplomacy go hand in hand, sheds light on a recent climate pact between Australia and California, and muses on how North American cities can take center stage during the World Cup 2026.
Speaker: Welcome, Ambassador Hachigian. Thank you for joining us. First off, you will just start at the beginning. You were named the State Department's first special representative for subnational diplomacy last year in October and lead the then newly established unit for subnational diplomacy.
Speaker: So share with us, if you will, how your appointment and the unit, the office came to be and how does it build on your 10 years as ambassador to ASEAN and also more recently as the first deputy mayor for international affairs for the city of Los Angeles.
Speaker: Well, thank you for the question and thank you in general for having me. Thrilled to be here and share the love of working with cities and states with your audience. You are accurate in what you said about me being the first representative for subnational diplomacy, but I actually changed my title in the meantime.
Speaker: And I'm now the special representative for city and state diplomacy. I did that because subnational diplomacy is a term of art that not many people know yet. I work with mayors and governors and county officials and town executives and
Speaker: They are all very practical people, and it wasn't clear, I think, what my title actually meant. So I thought that it would make more sense to put it in plainer language. My team is still the subnational diplomacy team, but my title is different. To answer your question, this is a new field relatively in the United States.
Speaker: In the rest of the world, many parts of the world, it's well -developed, and mayors and governors and other local leaders are expected that part of their job will be to engage with their neighboring countries and countries around the world at their counterparts in those places. But it's relatively fresh in the United States.
Speaker: And so what we do is three things. We are bringing the benefits of US foreign policy more closely to cities and to states and to other local localities. So when I was deputy mayor for international affairs, I was trying to do the same thing, to try to figure out what benefits we can bring to our constituents from the globe.
Speaker: There are many of those, so there are jobs and investment opportunities. There are good ideas from other places about how to solve a challenge. I'll give you some specific examples of that. There is skills for our young people so they can be globally competitive. There are issues that our diasporas are interested in about what's going on in their countries of origin.
Speaker: So what we're trying to do first is say that with the foreign policy that the United States conducts, there are benefits for localities. And we try to be the glue or the bridge that's connecting. The second thing that we do is encourage our mayors and governors and county officials to do more on the international stage. As I said earlier, there are many places where the mayors and governors are expected to do that. And that's not true in the United States. And in fact, there can be a political
Speaker: Stigma attached what are you doing you know.
Speaker: traveling to another country. But in fact, what we can explain is all the benefits that come from that. So that's the second piece. And we give advice about whatever anybody might need. And in general, we are talking to mayors and governors every day, every week about questions they have. And we're their front door to the State Department. Another piece of this, which we haven't talked about yet, is that there are many global challenges that are now local.
Speaker: And so they are also informing us about the local challenges they see that emanate from abroad and giving us a sense of the way they're innovating to handle these challenges. And that can be climate change, it can be a pandemic. And then the third thing I'll just say quickly is that we are also a resource for all of our colleagues all over the world and encouraging them and helping them engage with local leaders wherever they are.
Speaker: Since it's not even been a year yet, so recognizing the short window you've had so far in the role, but also the short window for impact in terms of political cycles here in the US sometimes, can you share how your office has delivered to date? So a little bit of a reflection on the first, I suppose, 10 months so far.
Speaker: a couple of highlights from that period, in particular to some of these initiatives and the main objectives you just ran through there.
Speaker: So I'll say a few things. We've conducted a number of events, so we can talk more about the City Summit of the Americas, but that was a big deal for our office because it's the first time the State Department has hosted any city gathering as far as we knew. That was terrific and a great way to begin our tenure. We also organized for the Secretary of State to speak to the US Conference of Mayors.
Speaker: first time ever a Secretary of State has ever spoken to that group in their many, many decades of existence. We also organized an event around the Democracy Summit. So this is a gathering that President Biden began to discuss how to deliver democracy best and what the best practices are and all the challenges to it that we face in our world. And so we brought the mayoral component to that and
Speaker: we showcase a global declaration on democracy that mayors had signed, so about 200 mayors. So this is affirming that democracy is also closest to the people at that local level in cities and in
Speaker: towns and in rural areas. Mayors actually have a big role in shaping democracy from the bottom up. This year, the United States is hosting APEC, which is Asia -Pacific Economic Cooperation. This is an annual summit that brings together the heads of state of a whole bunch of countries that are focused on economic cooperation
Speaker: The transportation ministers met in Detroit and we did an event there at that summit as well on EV charging at the local level. We can talk more about climate change and the really important role that localities have in climate change. That's some of the highlights.
Speaker: As I said earlier, on a daily, weekly basis, we are just answering questions that our local officials have and connecting them with counterparts overseas, helping our State Department colleagues based all over the world connect with our local officials.
Speaker: So that's just a few of the examples. One more thing, which I'm really proud of and happy that we'll be able to do is we've started a pilot program to send foreign service officers into cities. This will be just a very small pilot to begin with, but it will be starting to build that capacity that mid -sized cities need to engage on the global stage.
Speaker: Yeah, so it definitely you touched on the democracy summit and the role of cities in democracy. And that's something we spoke on before. And I definitely want to come back to that point a little later on. But perhaps just staying on the city summit of the Americas, given how that being an inaugural convening, can you give us a general sort of readout of the summit and
Speaker: and some main outcomes from the meeting that you're proud of and taking forward. Funny that you use the word taking forward because one of the big things that we announced is a new program called Cities Forward. So we had 250 mayors there from all over the hemisphere, North America, Latin America, the Caribbean, and we had thousands of other
Speaker: people attending. So private sector, it was civil society organizations, nonprofits, and really importantly, city networks. So what I think made it work so well is that early on in the process, we brought in city networks and other organizations that think about cities and
Speaker: had them co -create the actual material for us so that it was geared toward things that mayors like to talk about. And those are very practical things like affordable housing, and public safety, and health, and a lot on climate and clean energy transition, and transparency, and how to use data, and many other topics. So we covered like 100 sessions all told of different types, and a lot of
Speaker: informal new partnerships were developed and those continue to reverberate as I've anecdotally learned. But we've also launched a number of initiatives and one is called Cities Forward, which is pairing North American like United States cities with those in the hemisphere to together work on
Speaker: inclusive, sustainable programming and plans. And then once the planning is done, we will connect them to possibilities for financing those plans.
Speaker: So that's one of the major deliverables. We also had an agreement with Denver around fentanyl, sharing information about new developments in that crisis, connecting what we do with the State Department in terms of trying to prevent the exports.
Speaker: with what mayors are doing every day, which is handling the impact on their citizens. And there are many transnational challenges like that where the State Department is working on them and localities are working on them, sharing information back and forth about these big challenges. So the Secretary of State had a roundtable with women mayors and their particular challenges.
Speaker: from the United States and from Latin America. And that was also, I think, is a highlight for me and I think for him as well. We invited some Ukrainian mayors to come and witness this summit and have conversations about their challenges in this war of aggression that they are still dealing with.
Speaker: Sounds quite broad, but also very practical. And I'm wondering, particularly thinking about US foreign policy in the Americas, it's sometimes been seen as a little bit historically neglected, perhaps. And it sounds like being able to take such a tangible, on the ground level, practical collaboration.
Speaker: You can see it sort of reverberating up and strengthening ties in terms of broader international foreign policy, the US policy towards the Americas. Have you sort of got that sense and there are results coming through in that way in terms of not only the
Speaker: city to city learning and progress at the local level and what our mayors glean from it here, but also that it is feeding back into strengthening national level foreign policy and strengthening our partnerships with our international partners across the Americas.
Speaker: That's well put, and I think it is having that effect. So the city summit was an outgrowth of the summit of the Americas that the United States is hosting this year. And so it was the first time that there was a city's communion. And it turns out that the Western Hemisphere is the most urbanized place on the planet. So it makes a lot of sense to be talking to leaders at that level.
Speaker: It also makes sense in terms of strengthening democracy because when leaders deliver at that local level, they are making the case for democratic governance. I do think that other countries certainly at the national level took note of this summit.
Speaker: were hoping that it gets carried forward in the Summit of the Americas process. It was a very unique and very appreciated convening. One thing that I really took a lot of delight in was there were a lot of high -level leaders in the U .S. government that came to the Summit, both from the State Department, including the Secretary himself,
Speaker: but also from other partners across the different agencies. To see them interact with city leaders and to witness what city leaders talk about was really gratifying for me. We often speak slightly different languages.
Speaker: What mayors provide is a tangible examples of how their residents can live better through innovations in governance. And it's just very gratifying to see work being translated to people's daily lives. So that to me resonates with the goal of the Biden administration in terms of building a foreign policy for the middle class.
Speaker: both foreign and domestic policy needs be aligned, and not just in practice, but the way Americans experience the impacts every day. And we've been looking a lot here about inter -industrial policy and particularly legislative achievements like the IRA, the Inflation Reduction Act, and the CHIPS Act.
Speaker: and their impact at the local level. Is that something where your office has played a role or is playing a role in the sort of execution and implementation of those initiatives and being able to provide that
Speaker: two -way channel in terms of both the development of the legislation, but more importantly, the implementation at the local level. That legislation is being implemented through the White House and the Department of Energy and the Environmental Protection Agency and others.
Speaker: But we do a lot of work on climate, and it's one of my top priorities for the team. And it's a great example of the importance that local leaders play in global solutions. So what is unprecedented about the IRA, it is the biggest piece of climate legislation we've ever passed in US history. What it is unleashing is the ability
Speaker: because they finally have the money of cities and states to show high ambition in decarbonization. So that is just fantastic. And the way it connects to foreign policy is this. We can have targets of being net zero by 2050, for example.
Speaker: But what cities and states do is actually all the work it takes to take the carbon out of the atmosphere. So they are responsible for power generation. They're responsible for public transportation and putting in EV chargers procuring electric buses for their fleets. They're in charge of building codes and what buildings need to do
Speaker: how to make sure that sanitation and landfills are not producing methane. That's all the work of cities and states. And now they are properly funded. What that means is that the United States can be on the road to meeting its commitments. And what that means is that Special Envoy Kerry, Secretary Kerry, can use that leverage to get other countries
Speaker: and companies to do their fair share of decarbonization as well. So without that local action,
Speaker: we can't carry out the foreign policy that we need to carry out. And that's true in other countries as well. There are many networks of cities around climate action. So there's C40, which is the mega cities, which together I think cover, you know, are responsible for like 25 % of carbon emissions alone. Then there's IKLA and the global covenant of mayors, which combine smaller and mid -sized cities.
Speaker: around climate action, and these are all global. And then locally there, or in the United States, there's climate mayors. So these are groups of mayors, and there's also the Under 2 Coalition, and We Are All In. These combine regions and states as well, all of which is to say there is a lot of action globally with cities and states and regions getting together to share their climate solutions, all knowing that they are
Speaker: an incredibly important part of the solution to decarbonization and that it really takes their focus and attention to implementing all the new technologies around
Speaker: getting carbon out of the system. What they are often missing is the financing. What's exciting is that we now in the United States have the financing that we need. In terms of telling that story, so often local leaders are the ones who are in the best position to communicate to their constituents of the successes of
Speaker: legislation or achieving that funding, how can or how are you seeing mayors and governors kind of being instrumental in communicating some of the results, the successes that's come as a result of this administration's and the bipartisan legislation? I've heard a lot of governors and mayors talking about how important the IRA is.
Speaker: to their communities. They are really excited and grateful. I don't have any data on it, but I have anecdotally, absolutely heard them talking about it and how important it is.
Speaker: It does seem that the city summit in particular, but other initiatives led by cities and states, there's an opportunity for it to be a space for bipartisan cooperation. You know, when we've looked at someone like Mayor Suarez of Miami, who's a Republican mayor and risen to national prominence, including those of president of the US Conference of Mayors, and he was a keynote at city summit.
Speaker: He seems to have embraced the mission of city and state diplomacy. And do you see him as having been or others like him as having been an example of bipartisan cooperation at that local level? Yeah, absolutely. Bipartisan and nonpartisan. Many mayor offices are nonpartisan that you don't run for mayor as a Republican or a Democrat or anything else. You just run. That's the way it is in many cities, actually.
Speaker: But for sure, I mean, we work with all political parties all the time. A lot of the work is just not political. You know, it's when you're asking, how do you reduce heat in a city? That's not a political question. You know, it's really practical. It's well, you know,
Speaker: How do you compare planting trees versus putting up shade versus using a different kind of pavement that isn't as hot versus cooling centers? It's all just very practical stuff. Nominally, Democratic and Republican or Independent or whatever other parties are out there, they can have a conversation about those things and it doesn't have to be political. It's really about results.
Speaker: That's great to hear and definitely something we could probably all do with hearing a bit more of as well. Maybe then to go to that question about the role of cities and democracy. So a couple of years back when we last spoke, you spoke to us about this proposition that cities can be something of a safeguard against the liberal or authoritarian national leaders.
Speaker: Well, obviously in a different circumstance here in the US than we were then, but those challenges certainly persist globally and the threat remains here. Kind of looking ahead, how has your perspective on this developed through your role now and maybe including with some of that optimism and pragmatic and practical approach, do you see a role for city and state?
Speaker: diplomacy, subnational diplomacy to play in terms of weathering national partisan shifts, and particularly when we see some national governments openly hostile to city leadership, that international cooperation and collaboration support networks among cities being a key support to some of those city leaders.
Speaker: Yeah, I mean, I think at the end of the day, cities and mayors and governors and local leaders in general are about delivering services for their residents. And when they do that well, it makes a great case for the democratic system. So when they do it with transparency,
Speaker: and with privacy protections and with accountability and with speed and efficiency. That makes the case better than an argument can about why democracy works. I was reading about an app that they use in Ukraine.
Speaker: The United States, I think, had a hand in helping develop. All the budgetary transactions are online and open to the public, and so there's much less opportunity for corruption, and you can get government services organized through your phone. So that's sort of an example of
Speaker: you know, an exercise in efficiency and transparency that makes the case for why democracies work so well for people. Do you see there being a very clear role, deliberate or specific role for local leaders to play when it comes to advancing international diplomacy, particularly when it kind of stools a little bit otherwise? So in particular, I'm curious as to how
Speaker: the importance, the challenges, the opportunities for city and state leadership and national leadership to stay aligned, particularly when it comes to some very important relationships. And maybe if there's a role that your office plays in terms of facilitating that kind of alignment, ensuring the priorities there are there.
Speaker: Let me talk about a different example in California cuz I was just up in Sacramento a couple weeks ago for the signing of an agreement between Australia and California.
Speaker: on climate cooperation. And so there's an example. And this is, I think, the only subnational agreement of its kind that Australia has ever signed with anybody, unleashing this cooperation between companies and between research institutions and between governments. And there's already Australian companies that are working to help extract lithium, for example, in California and others that are working on EV charging infrastructure.
Speaker: If there aren't already, there will be California -based companies working in Australia that probably already are. That's an example of where a state is strengthening a really important relationship we have with Australia.
Speaker: and all in the service of a common goal that we have with Australia on climate mitigation and adaptation and reducing our carbon. So that's, I think, a really positive, exciting role that many cities and states are playing is to create another level of friendship and cooperation and connectivity that will reinforce our foreign policy.
Speaker: cities are really on the front lines of America's immigration crisis. And we're seeing, I'm here in New York, tensions at the moment, obviously between New York, cities, state and federal government. So is that an area where your office, your initiatives have been engaged? Has it been some sort of test or approving ground or if not, are there other ways that you're really bringing together discussions around
Speaker: immigration solutions at that city level and ensuring there is that dialogue up to the federal in alignment with the federal level as well. Yeah. I mean, there are other parts of the State Department that are primarily focused on migration and new initiatives that we have around promoting legal pathways and safe pathways, but it is the case that cities across the world have the challenge of settling migrants and
Speaker: There are organizations, there's one called the Mayors Migration Council, which brings together conversations around the practicalities of how you do that in a humane and organized way. So we talk with the folks who are the ones who are primarily
Speaker: in charge of the policy, connect them when they need to be, when they want to be or need to be connected with local leaders to get their perspective on what it looks like from the ground. I think one area that you've long been involved in and when we spoke during the pandemic, I think
Speaker: there were some areas it was a bit on pause was around educational exchange in particular and exposing youth to opportunities in diplomacy and cultural interchange. It sounds like when you mentioned the pilot program around foreign service officers, that's one piece of it sort of building those capacities and areas of interest internally. But could you talk a little bit about how you're continuing to carry through some of these priorities?
Speaker: I'm so glad you asked because the State Department has a lot of programs for young people and for students. I don't think enough people know about them. So another thing we're doing is making sure that mayors who are the ones who can connect well to communities that might not hear about a State Department program
Speaker: know about these programs. And we've got one that has a deadline in early October called the Gilman Program, which is for low -income students, those receiving Pell grants, to apply for monies to do an overseas program. And we give out thousands of these. I don't think enough local leaders know about them. So we're doing a lot of
Speaker: trying to make sure that across the country, local leaders can offer these kinds of opportunities to their constituents.
Speaker: And so going back earlier to the role of the US in relations with Canada and Mexico, how can World Cup 26 be a showpiece really for regional economic cooperation and particularly a boon for cities? Do you see already looking ahead a role for that event and as a cornerstone for collaboration?
Speaker: Oh, for sure. And the cities and the various parts of the federal government are already having conversations around it. For some cities, it'll be the first time they host a major sporting event. For other cities, it's one of many, but there's still always a lot of work to do to make it what they want it to be. And it's really exciting that there's Canada and Mexico involved as well. So I think for sure it will be an important moment in city diplomacy.
Speaker: It sounds like part of your role and your focus is also building out more awareness, more infrastructure and channels of communication and collaboration at the city and state level.
Speaker: Do you feel like, I know there's a separate and it's a matter for Congress in terms of creating some sort of permanent office around city and state level diplomacy, but do you feel that one of your priorities is to build these capacities and leave that legacy? I mean, I certainly hope so. I think once leaders begin to do it, they will continue to do it because it delivers so much value. I certainly hope that that's the case.
Speaker: I also believe very strongly in our work and will do whatever I can for as long as I can to make sure that it survives and thrives. I would like to see it become a permanent part of State Department architecture. I don't think in this century we can really afford to be disconnected when so many of our challenges are ones that we're working on together.
Speaker: Special thanks to Ambassador Nina Hachigian, the U .S. State Department's Special Representative for City and State Diplomacy, speaking here to KIT Magazine in Santiago's Alexander Rogan. This episode is the latest in KIT Magazine's Football in the Global Cities series on Urbanism and Sustainability and the first of a special run of interviews produced in partnership with Concordia.
Speaker: For the Concordia Annual Summit in New York City, join us in person or virtually 18th through the 20th of September for the 2023 edition of this international gathering focused on intelligence, ideas, and collective solutions to pressing global matters. To find out more and register, visit www .concordia .net.
