Soft Power, Hard Returns: American Investment in Egypt (w/ James Harmon & Cornelius Queen)
In 2011, Congress placed $300 million in the hands of private investors with an unusual mandate: grow Egypt’s economy on behalf of the American people. Fifteen years later, the Egyptian-American Enterprise Fund has invested in more than 150 companies, helped create over 75,000 jobs, and grown to an estimated value of more than $500 million. And it has managed all this in a country rocked by revolution, political instability, and currency collapse. At a moment when Americans are questioning the costs of hard power in the Middle East and the value of foreign assistance, the Fund’s track record raises provocative questions about how the US projects its influence abroad. Can private-sector investment succeed where troops and traditional aid have struggled? Why should taxpayer dollars back ventures in faraway markets? And can this model of “soft power” be replicated across the developing world?
In this episode, Paul Saunders speaks with James Harmon and Cornelius Queen, two authors of the new book A Daring Enterprise: A US-Egyptian Partnership and the Case for Soft Power. The book looks at the Egyptian-American Enterprise Fund, where Harmon is chairman and Queen is a senior vice president. Harmon, a former chairman of the Export-Import Bank of the United States, previously served as chairman and CEO of the investment bank Schroder Wertheim & Co. and is chair emeritus of the World Resources Institute. Queen has worked on Capitol Hill and managed humanitarian aid programs in Lebanon.
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