In visit to Houston, trade a priority for Swedish envoy
Meetings set with mayor, business leaders
One year after being named Sweden’s U.S. ambassador, Karin Olofsdotter is making her first official trip to Texas this week, arriving in Houston Wednesday. She’ll be meeting with Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner, along with representatives of myriad Swedish companies in the state, such as Volvo Group, Ericsson and SSAB. But in an interview in Washington last week, it was her country’s trade relationship with the United States that was occupying most of her thoughts. Edited excerpts follow.
Q: You have met with President Trump twice now. How did you and Trump get along?
We’re both golfers. I sent the president a book of the most beautiful golf courses in Sweden. I got a thank you note, though I don’t know if he read it. But he should. Sweden has beautiful golf courses.
Q: You’ve been critical of the president’s trade policies as protectionist in a time the world needs more free trade. When you and Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Löfven met with Trump in the oval office this spring, were you able to find any common ground?
The president has a strong conviction his trade agenda is right, and that the U.S. economy has been cheated for so long. But we don’t see it that way. We have to look at goods and services. And [on services] the U.S. has a large surplus and that creates a lot of jobs. Q: If you look around the world though, it seems like
more and more leaders are shifting to Trump’s way of thinking.
There’s a global trend of nationalism and I think it comes out of many factors. We are in a big technological shift. Maybe it takes 20 to 30 years to figure it out, but it already creates an anxiety. Are jobs disappearing forever or moving somewhere else? And the natural reaction is let’s protect ourselves from others. But we have moved so far beyond that, it’s not possible or desirable. Take a Volvo car. It has like 10,000 parts from 70 different countries. We could never produce that in Sweden alone. It would be too expensive. No one would buy it.
Q: So, what brings you to Texas? As your office has kindly informed me, Swedish companies employ more than 25,000 people in Texas, more than any state except California. Are you going to check up on them?
Ambassadors travel. Washington like any capital in the world is a bubble. It’s where government officials hang out and to understand a country you need to visit many other places. Texas as a state is extremely interesting to us. We already have a big footprint, but we want that to grow.
Q: How likely is that, considering the current trade tensions?
The economy here is booming. Swedish companies are doing great. You have tax reform that has lowered corporate taxes to 10 percent, which is really positive. But companies are holding back. They could invest more, if there wasn’t uncertainty in the trade agenda.
Q: This is your first official trip to Texas, but you’ve visited before you were ambassador. What were your impressions of the state? And please, don’t be too polite.
Last time when I was there, there was a huge rodeo in Houston. It was amazing. What I love about this country is everyone is super friendly. You go into a gas station in the middle of nowhere and they yell, “Hello darling.” It sounds like I’m trying to be nice but it’s true. Also, I was brought up with the TV series Dallas. Through that I think I know Texas, though of course I don’t.