Sen. John Curtis has a message for Utah’s business community. In “an era of great unrest,” the federal government can’t tackle all the world’s problems by itself.
“But,” he told a gathering of business and political leaders in Salt Lake City, “every business person will tell you in an era like this there’s opportunity.”
Curtis gave the keynote address at the April 25 gathering of the U.S. Global Leadership Coalition. He later joined a panel discussion with coalition President and CEO Liz Schrayer, retired U.S. Navy Vice Admiral Robert Harward and Citi Managing Director of Global Affairs Candi Wolff.
Wolff and others in the financial sector have described the global economy as going through a period of transition since the pandemic.
“Globalization, as has been talked about for decades, is undergoing a dynamic and transition period, but we're in a period where we really don't know what the outcome is going to look like,” Wolff said. “There's a reordering, but it's not entirely clear how it's going to be reordered.”
That transition has been accelerated by an ongoing trade war with China, the federal government curtailing investments in foreign assistance and a volatile stock market reacting to all of it.
“You have to recognize that economic security is national security these days, and they're very intertwined,” Wolff said. “And our policy, whether it's foreign policy or our economic policies, really look through both lenses.”
For his part, Curtis acknowledged that there is a lot of current uncertainty. He also made the argument that there is a real need to take a closer look at where the federal government spends its money abroad.
“We do need to recalibrate what we're doing,” he said. “We don't have a dollar to waste. We don't have a person to waste.”
“I have been to a lot of countries and they show me the USAID program, and it's fine and it's good and it's helping, but it's been the same program for 10 years and nobody has tweaked it and nobody's asked any questions about it and I just say this is a perfect time to ask those questions,” he added.
Curtis and the others said a big part of the solution — and making sure the United States maintains its place as a global leader and does not cede ground to adversaries like China — is tapping into the power of the private sector, particularly in Utah. He called public-private partnerships America’s “secret sauce.”
“How are we going to deal with starvation and death and war? It's really overwhelming,” Curtis said. “How are we going to do it? It's all hands on deck. And that's what America has that China doesn't.”
He pointed to religious organizations leading humanitarian missions and private sector innovation bolstering cybersecurity as prime examples.
In periods of economic uncertainty, like now, Wolff said, there are still possibilities for businesses across Utah in different sectors of the economy.
“How do you find opportunities when government resources are constrained? You have to find them through how you use the private sector,” she said. “That's really where we begin to engage with Utah businesses, with extending our trade and our investment so that we can help support others and create economic environments for them so that they can thrive and Utah and America can thrive.”
Speaking to reporters at a separate event, Curtis expressed a desire to claw back some power over economic policy from the executive branch as a way to carefully craft a framework that benefits the most people.
“We're kind of in the middle of something right now that is going to play out the way it's going to play out,” he said. “But I think this is a really good example of when Congress doesn't do its job, the executive branch, no matter which president it is, tends to try to do it.”
