The International View of the American Value Proposition

A Conversation With Ambassador Mark Brzezinski

Ambassador Mark Brzezinski has served as the U.S. ambassador to Poland since 2021. He previously served as the U.S. Ambassador to Sweden from 2011–2015. VEDP President and CEO Jason El Koubi spoke with Ambassador Brzezinski about foreign direct investment, European perceptions of the business climate in the United States and Virginia, and what states can do to attract European investment.

Jason El Koubi: Just to kick things off, can you talk about the role of an ambassador in influencing foreign direct investment activity?

Mark Brzezinski: An ambassador has many roles that overlay with security and American defense that pertain to advancing democracy and our values, and to advancing American commercial success and American business interests. Both in Sweden and now in Poland, I’ve had the privilege of working with small, medium-sized, and large American companies investing abroad and taking the risk of expanding their business beyond America’s borders to advance their own profitability.

One of the roles of a U.S. ambassador and a U.S. mission overseas is to try to minimize the risk for that American corporate citizen investing abroad by sharing information with them, using the power to convene that an ambassador has to build networks, and building alignments between American businesses and potential overseas counterparts. 

It’s been my privilege to work alongside U.S. Department of Commerce colleagues in advancing that goal, and also with U.S. state governors. When I was in Sweden, I was visited by two Virginia governors. Gov. Bob McDonnell and Gov. Terry McAuliffe both visited me in Stockholm on missions geared toward advancing investment into Virginia. I’m pleased to say that some of my proudest moments as ambassador have been when we’ve landed really significant corporate deals that advance the American interest. 

Here in Poland, one of my proudest successes is advancing the combination of Westinghouse and Bechtel to build Poland’s first civil nuclear power plant. In 2023, that was the single largest commercial deal an American embassy helped broker anywhere in the world. 

I’m a product of the private sector myself. I know what it means to build a business plan. I know about the struggle to make payroll. I know about the various challenges to make a company profitable, and so I love the role of an ambassador as it pertains to the private sector in the commercial context. 

Brzezinski: I think that’s exactly right, and there are also unique things about the United States. Take, for example, the clustering around American research universities — the small, medium-sized, large businesses that build up around college towns and around large research universities, whether it’s the University of Virginia or Harvard or the University of Michigan or the University of California at Berkeley or Stanford.

You’d be surprised how uniquely American that is, how little knowledge there is overseas on the part of companies thinking of expanding into the United States, and how keenly interesting it is for, say, a Swedish or a Polish biotech company to understand that there’s cross-pollination between biotech companies in Charlottesville, Virginia, and the University of Virginia — a symbiotic relationship that can really help advance a company’s profitability. That is the kind of thing that you don’t see frequently elsewhere, and in some countries, you don’t see it at all. It is one of the great multipliers about investing in the United States that can scale a $10 million company to a $1 billion company in not too long of a time. There are unique things about America that need to be explained by putative foreign investors that an ambassador can undertake. 

El Koubi: You’ve touched on a number of U.S. strengths that you articulate to companies that are considering investing in the United States. What are some of the other things that you talk about when you’re giving the sales pitch? 

Brzezinski: There’s something really great about the professionalism and the rules-based legal context in which American companies thrive. You know what will be the case with your business in a week’s time, in a month’s time, in a year’s time, and the kind of arbitrariness that you might see overseas doesn’t happen in our legally certain, rule-of-law-based system. That may sound to an American business like part of the norm, but it’s exceptional and important.

In the end, investors and innovators thrive when they know that their intellectual property can’t be stolen from them. They can be assured that next month the tax collector won’t arrive at their doorstep when all of a sudden they’re being charged $200,000 in unexpected tax. Our rules-based, transparent, legally accountable system has been shown to allow the private sector to flourish. 

El Koubi: You’ve encountered many companies looking to invest in Europe, but also many companies in Europe that are looking to invest in the United States. How would you describe their priorities? What’s the language that they use? What do they tend to focus on?

Brzezinski: The companies that want to expand into the United States are profoundly impressed by the innovative ecosystem of the United States. There’s something unique about the American process of development and R&D innovation that overseas businesspeople see that they want to participate in. 

Take, for example, the Tysons Corner/Northern Virginia tech corridor. So many innovations and discoveries have emerged from that tech corridor because companies there have either internal R&D systems or they’re part of an incubator system of companies in a local community that allows people to share and develop ideas. That is something particularly attractive to overseas companies. They’ve developed an idea, they’ve commercialized it by forming a company, and now they want to scale. The American marketplace is second to none in terms of the context as it’s seen by overseas businesspeople to send their product and their business to. 

I would also highlight the industriousness of the American worker. Americans work hard. People overseas know that. They value an ethic that produces profitability, and they want to align their company’s culture with that culture. That’s also tremendously attractive. 

El Koubi: What advice do you have for individual states that are looking to attract foreign direct investment from other regions of the world? What are some of the policy decisions that public officials on the ground should be considering?

Brzezinski: First of all, when it comes to policy decisions either for government officials or the private sector, go overseas and see what others are doing. Introduce yourself to companies overseas to see what possible alignments there are with regard to a particular aspect or region of Virginia, whether it’s an ag company or a shipping company or a tech company. Go overseas, see what others are doing, and see how it could synchronize in Virginia’s conditions.

Second, I think that it’s important for the state government to provide as facilitated an arrival process for overseas companies as possible because you have to remember that when they come to a place like Virginia, everything is new — how to incorporate, how to set up a system to pay taxes, where to find employees, how to align with other businesses in chambers of commerce, how to fully exploit business promotion ecosystems in the state. A state government that facilitates an arrival process for an overseas investor will save that overseas investor literally years and years of time by pointing them in the right direction. 

Third, harness the jewels of the state: the university system, the localized chambers of commerce, the various business networks a state has, and when potential foreign participants in the economy come to Virginia, introduce them. Those conversations can produce business instantly. 

Lastly, I would recommend that any public official focused on economic development make it a policy to work closely with SelectUSA and the Foreign Commercial Service. They provide valuable support to the work that economic development officials do to attract FDI to the United States. The opportunities for investment attraction at the annual SelectUSA Investment Summit, which this year is in June outside Washington, D.C., are exceptional.

El Koubi: You make Virginia your home when you’re not representing our country overseas. When you think about Virginia, when you get to spend some time here, what are some of the things you most enjoy? 

Brzezinski: I love the Shenandoah Mountains. I’ve probably canoed the Shenandoah River 50 times. I own land in Rappahannock County where I do a lot of hunting and fishing. I’m an outdoorsy guy. That’s what I like to do, and that’s why I like Virginia. 

El Koubi: Ambassador Mark Brzezinski, who serves our country representing us in Poland, it has been such a pleasure to speak with you today. Thank you very much. 

Brzezinski: Thank you, Jason. 

For the full interview, visit www.vedp.org/Podcasts