🔒As trade war heats up, CT finding greater value in trade commissions

Conall O Móráin is a prominent business broadcaster and podcaster based in Dublin, Ireland. 

From his bedroom window, he can see the international headquarters of Meta, the parent of Facebook. 

“I can walk about 12 minutes down the road and I can bump into the Google HQ,” he said during a recent interview with Hartford Business Journal. “We have them all here. As I travel this afternoon, I'll be passing by the Microsoft HQ.”

This is not just a coincidence. For the past 65 years, Ireland has utilized attractive tax policies to lure U.S. companies to its island of about 5 million people.

Móráin, though, says Ireland also views international business interactions as a two-way street. Exhibit A, he said, is Enterprise Ireland, a state economic development agency focused on helping Irish-owned businesses grow export sales.

“You do not get Enterprise Ireland money at all, not a penny, unless you have demonstrable plans to … get off the island,” he said.

He also noted that Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer had recently visited Ireland to promote her state as a place to do business.

It is in that context that Connecticut is ramping up its Connecticut-Ireland Trade Commission. Created by the legislature last year, the commission now has 23 members and is preparing to conduct its first meeting. 

Among its members are former Sen. Christopher Dodd, who was appointed by Gov. Ned Lamont. Dodd at one point was considered a front-runner for appointment as U.S. ambassador to Ireland under former President Joe Biden, though he ultimately did not get the post.

Other prominent appointees include West Haven Mayor Dorinda Borer, Sen. Joan Hartley (D-Waterbury), Sen. Henri Martin (R-Bristol), Rep. Chris Aniskovich (R-Clinton), and Rep. Stephen Meskers (D-Greenwich), each of whom is a member of the legislature’s Commerce Committee; and Quinnipiac University professor Christine Kinealy, founding director of Ireland's Great Hunger Institute.

At the same time that the Connecticut-Ireland Trade Commission is organizing, a bill seeking to create a Connecticut-Puerto Rico Trade Commission is making its way through the current session of the state legislature. A third bill, seeking to create a trade commission with Taiwan, has not gotten out of committee.

The legislators behind the trade commission efforts say they see opportunities to promote and enhance both business and cultural ties to the targeted partners. But with the Trump administration instigating a global trade war, the benefits of having state-sponsored trade commissions are becoming clearer.

The tariff era

Senate Majority Leader Bob Duff (D-Norwalk) said he sees an advantage for Connecticut having trade commissions.

“States may have to go it alone at this point,” he said regarding international trade. “Maybe it positions us better by having those relationships.”

Duff said he has traveled to foreign countries and has seen the benefits of making connections with legislators overseas. 

“Presidents come and go, governors come and go,” he said. “State legislators tend to be there longer, so having those ties tends to bear more fruit, I think, over the long term.”

Tariffs, of course, don’t apply to Puerto Rico, which is a U.S. territory. But Rep. Christopher Rosario (D-Bridgeport), co-sponsor of a bill to create the Connecticut-Puerto Rico Trade Commission, said he sees many potential benefits from creating a stronger connection to that island.

“In Connecticut, we have some of the highest population of Puerto Ricans on the mainland,” Rosario said. “We're deeply entrenched in pretty much every major city, the business community and the political community. It just made sense.”

He noted that state pharmaceutical companies “are doing a lot of work” in Puerto Rico, and that the University of Bridgeport recently signed a partnership with Ponce Health Sciences University in Ponce, Puerto Rico, to collaborate on a master's of science degree in medical sciences program.

Connecticut also has engineers that could help the island “with the things that they're going through” with its infrastructure and energy issues, Rosario said.

“We just want to make it a ‘one-stop shop’ to make sure that there's a lot of things happening at cross reference,” he said.

The bill received bipartisan support in the Commerce Committee, which approved it by a unanimous vote in March, and now awaits a vote in the House.

Rosario says he is confident the bill will ultimately be approved.

The bill to create a Taiwan Trade Commission, was never voted on by the Commerce Committee.

Expert advice

Anne Evans, now CEO of Universal Strategies Ltd. in East Hartford and a former director at the U.S. Department of Commerce International Trade Administration, noted that neither Ireland nor Taiwan are major trading partners with Connecticut.

According to recently published data by the U.S. Census Bureau and U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, Ireland was not among the top 20 export trade partners for Connecticut, while Taiwan was 14th at $294 million.

The reverse was true for imports. Ireland ranked 20th at $229 million, while Taiwan was not among the top 20.

Evans said the commissions, for which members are not compensated except for being reimbursed for expenses, do not cost states much. But she questioned whether the trading partners being selected make sense for businesses.

“So, the good news is that the legislature is looking at Connecticut as an international state and recognizing that trade is important,” she said. “But my only thing is, I would love to see the legislature go out to the business community as a whole and say we're developing commissions. Let's look at where the companies in our state feel they need the most support.”

Connecticut international exports surged by nearly 10% in 2024 reaching $17.4 billion, according to federal data. 

The state’s top export trade partners remained unchanged in 2024 — Canada was the top export destination, with goods totaling $2.3 billion. That was followed by Germany ($1.8 billion), Mexico ($1.67 million) and China ($1.5 billion). 

Conversely, Connecticut international imports totaled $22.7 billion in 2024, up 3.41% from a year earlier. That was the highest total of international imports since at least 2018, federal data shows. 

The state’s top import trade partners were Canada, Mexico, Germany and the Netherlands, and the vast majority of goods were manufacturing products, International Trade Administration data shows. 

Consulting with businesses in Connecticut, Evans said, would likely produce trade commissions better targeted to their needs.

For his part, Móráin, who testified via Zoom last year in support of the bill that created the Connecticut-Ireland Trade Commission, said Connecticut is viewed quite favorably in the Emerald Isle, particularly because it is just a five-hour Aer Lingus flight to Bradley International Airport.

“One of our sales lines about Connecticut for an Irish company is, as we might say, it's the next ‘parish’ over,” he said. “You've got the new route from Dublin to Hartford, that was a massive difference, because we just fly in, walk out and we're there.”