Are Form 8865 Advisory 2024

Good morning everybody. I'll call the session to order and give a few opening remarks. Obviously, this is our last meeting for this iteration of the PAC DBIA. We're going to focus on our trip that we took at the end of June and July, as well as the recommendations from that trip. From our perspective in the private sector, Mr. Secretary, thank you for your support and your team's support, as well as the government support around the trip. We visited four countries, and things went very well with the exception of showers in Kenya and airplane rides from Ethiopia. But other than that, it was a very good trip. One of the key things we talked about in Accra was the US government's support of the private sector across Africa. We aim to work together in bringing more business to a number of American companies. I'd like to share a couple of anecdotes from the last week and a half that underscore the importance of this focus. I met with President Kenyatta in Kenya last week, and again he's very much supportive of US business and activities in Kenya. However, financing becomes an issue for all the countries, especially as they look at debt ceilings. The second anecdote is about meeting with the President of Ghana, where he informed us about China's approach towards them. He mentioned that he hasn't seen anything from the United States, and this shows the need for us to continue pushing and publicizing our support. The third anecdote relates to our battle in Iraq with a German competitor for a multi-billion dollar power order. This battle shows that it's not just the Chinese, but also the Europeans that we need to compete with. Financing and what we can do will continue to be...