The Fedtrade® podcast recently interviewed Eugene Laney, President and CEO of the American Association of Exporters and Importers (AAEI). The AAEI represents an international community of trade compliance professionals responsible for complying with and influencing the laws — both domestic and global — that govern the export and import of goods.
Learn more about the AAEI on their website or follow them on LinkedIn. Connect with Eugene on LinkedIn.
Key Takeaways:
- AAEI was established to help U.S. companies grow globally.
- Three common challenges of AAEI members when either exporting or importing include market access, regulatory compliance, and trade facilitation/logistics.
- Membership includes Fortune 500 companies and SMEs.
- Benchmarking is a key membership benefit.
[a copy of the written transcript is here]:
Hello, welcome to Fedtrade®. I’m James Hastings of Rothwell Figg. Joining us is Eugene Laney, President and CEO of the American Association of Exporters and Importers, known as AAEI. Eugene will be sharing AAEI’s mission and how it helps its members successfully navigate the U.S. and international go-to-market ecosystem. Eugene, welcome to Fedtrade®.
Thank you for having me.
What is the mission of AAEI?
AAEI was established back in 1921. President Harding wanted to create an organization that would sort of help U.S. companies grow globally. At the time, we didn’t really have a focus at the Department of Commerce on export promotion. So there was a desire to help U.S. exporters grow globally. At the time, Boeing was making furniture. They were considered an SME. And they were interested in going into the aviation business. It was an opportunity to bring U.S. exporters together and benchmark, look at how to provide market access, regulatory compliance. So over the years, AAEI has grown from focusing mainly on smaller and medium-sized businesses to focusing on some of the bigger players as well as some of the smaller players that have an interest in growing globally.
You had mentioned some of the companies that are members of AAEI. And does it range the gamut from small startups to established companies?
Yeah, what’s interesting is that the core of our membership are mainly, you know, your Fortune 500 companies. We have a lot of small and medium sized businesses that have grown over the years into larger companies. We have a lot of technology companies recently that have been born to help major companies with supply chain logistics, with AI, with supply chain mapping, so these are the smaller players that have grown into bigger players. We also have a group of smaller exporters that export through e-commerce. So we have quite a few different industries, your traditional industries, agriculture, auto, pharma, and then of course you have the retail space that can cut across a number of different industries.
Does AAEI, in addition to having members that primarily sell products, also have members that engage in services?
Correct. What has happened over the years is that as trade compliance has grown as a sort of profession, there is a new calling for making sure that trade compliance professionals have the tools that they need to make decisions for their companies. So this is anything from logistics, where you have your traditional companies like UPS, DHL, FedEx, Mercer, some of the truck carriers, the customs brokers, the folks who are sort of like the referees for companies at the border. You have a lot of freight forwarders, the folks who really make a lot of decisions on how to move some of the cargo. And then you have a lot of the technology companies that can help with everything from using AI for classification, to help using AI to determine whether you have forced labor in your supply chain, using AI to help with understanding the laws and how that relates to how you’re doing business, and even AI recently to help with tariff duty mitigation. So a lot of these technology companies are growing each week to provide different services to the traditional U.S. exporters and importers.
Based on your experience, what are some top common challenges of AAEI members in terms of either importing or exporting that you see?
So really the challenges fall into three buckets. The one, of course, is the big one. That’s market access. That’s the question of how do I get into a market? How do I get the information that I need to determine whether there’s demand for my product? How do I navigate some of the regulatory challenges that exist in the country that I’m trying to do business with? And that really goes both ways. So we get questions about exporting into Saudi Arabia. We get questions into exporting into the U.S. So a lot of market access.
The second question is always around regulatory compliance. How do we educate our memberships on all the new changes that are coming down the pathway as it relates to new regulations, as well as new laws that come through Congress, as well as sort of being proactive in creating forms where we can sort of create the pathway or we can help companies create legislation and regulations that are more favorable to how they’re doing business. And then lastly is the big piece and that’s the trade facilitation piece slash logistics. The idea that how can we help our members get into market? How do we address issues from port congestion to port fees to making sure that we have an efficient border, all those different pieces. But the market access, regulatory compliance, and trade facilitation are the three biggest challenges that our members are facing daily.
And your association provides numerous education opportunities?
Well, we’re a very nimble group. So we depend a lot on our members. A lot of our members have close to 30 years of technical expertise. So right now, we have about 10 committees. So we have an export committee and a customs committee. We have an industry verticals committee. So we have a number of committees that have experts who have been in the business a long time. And from the export side, a lot of the topics that they focus a lot on is, as I mentioned before, market access advice. They focus a lot on how to create education around export control rules, around sanctions, denied parties, a lot of education around how we can create matchmaking services between, for example, if you’re a company and you’re interested in doing business in the EU or in the Netherlands, how do we match a U.S. company with the company in the Netherlands that can help them with distribution. We also do a lot of benchmarking. That’s a big benefit of AAEI. A lot of members want to compare notes on how they’re managing through the tariffs. And then, of course, the biggest one is the advocacy piece. So we have a lot of, from the export side, how can we advocate for U.S. exporters in a lot of the trade forms?
What are some of the benefits of AAEI membership?
The most popular benefit is a benchmark, and that’s where companies can sort of compare notes on how they’re managing through a particular issue. The tariffs are a great example. We have a tariff working group, as well as an all hands on deck committee group that focuses a lot on giving companies an opportunity to compare notes on how they’re doing duty mitigation, how they’re doing tariff re-engineering, how they’re communicating cross functionally within their company as well as how they’re speaking to the C-suite. We’re seeing now the trade compliance professionals are being asked to come and speak to the CEO for the first time. And so that type of benchmarking really helps. The other bucket that AAEI helps with is with education. We have an import 201 course. We also have other webinars and roadshows and events where we help trade compliance professionals as well as service providers learn about some of the challenges in international trade.
AAEI is a great forum to learn about some of the new products and services that trade providers are working on to try to help trade compliance professionals improve how they do their business. And then, of course, the biggest one is just the advocacy piece, the idea that you can leverage AAEI to, you know, go to the White House or to Congress to raise an issue without directly having your company be a part of it. So we sort of act as a shield if a company wants to raise the issue that they may have concerns about but they don’t want to raise it by themselves.
You had mentioned education and other events that are available to your members. Can you please give us a couple of examples?
There are three popular topics that have really hit us now. One is, of course, AI, how AI is used in trade compliance. We’ve had about seven webinars around AI, how AI is affecting classification, supply chain mapping, regulatory tracking. We’ve also had a number of webinars on how to manage the tariffs. We’ve had a lot of webinars on how to communicate to the C-suite. We do a lot of road show education and this could be anything from partnering with a country that’s interested in getting more U.S. exporters to work in, for example, Korea or Vietnam or Peru. So we do a lot of education around that. And then we also do, of course, when we travel abroad with road shows, we do export compliance webinars as well as customs webinars. And then, of course, we have our big conference that’s been in June for the last 100+ years.
This year’s in DC, where we bring together trade compliance professionals, government relations folks, supply chain managers, and trade service providers to sort of talk about some of the issues that are keeping them up at night, as well as having an exhibit hall where you can sort of play around with some of the new trade services tools. So a lot around education focuses on the conference, road shows, and the webinars.
We understand that AAEI will be attending the SelectUSA Investment Summit taking place later in May at National Harbor, Maryland. Can you please tell us a little about your participation there?
Yeah, so I’ll be speaking on a supply chain panel along with some others, I think it’s a carrier as well as a freight forwarder. And we’re going to really just talk a little bit about how to leverage supply chain providers, mainly logistics providers, freight forwarders, customs brokers, to help you get in country. Because SelectUSA focuses a lot on how to leverage your presence here in the U.S. So we’re very excited about being the strategic partner with the Department of Commerce and trying to get more investment here into the U.S.
Can you share with us either through SelectUSA efforts or your traditional efforts, some success stories of your members?
So we’ve had quite a few success stories over the years. I can’t speak directly to SelectUSA, but I always use my favorite story. That’s the gentleman in North Carolina who claimed he had the world’s greatest barbecue sauce. We all laughed in the room when he said he had the world’s greatest barbecue sauce and he wanted to export that barbecue sauce globally. And so AAEI worked with, you know, at the time we worked with DHL, FedEx, the District Export Council of North Carolina, and other organizations to help that businessman grow. He went from just exporting to Korea to exporting his world famous barbecue sauce to five different countries now. So that’s an example from an export perspective.
From an imports perspective, this is more of the importing of services because a lot of times we’re talking about the goods. We had a Jamaican resident come to AAEI and ask, how can I get my aggregate – which is stones/concretes – from Jamaica to Guyana. And he was aware that AAEI had relationships with a lot of law firms here and we have relationships with a lot of the transportation providers. And so what AAEI was able to do is create a relationship between a law firm here in U.S., a trade advisory firm here in the U.S., as well as a freight forwarder here in the U.S. to help him move his aggregate from Jamaica to the Port of New Orleans, and then to Guyana. So he’s now able to sell into Guyana. So that’s two sort of success stories. And both of these really point to how small and medium sized businesses are activated within the trade space. Of course, I could give you larger examples of how we work with some of the Fortune 500 companies, but I really wanted to highlight some of the small and medium sized businesses that leverage AAEI to grow their business globally.
Those are excellent examples because exporting or importing can be quite intimidating for those who do not know where to start. It sounds like AAEI has resources available to these types of entities from manufacturing all the way up through perhaps sales and marketing and distribution. Is that accurate?
Correct, yeah. So we’ve connected a number of different small and medium-sized businesses. In fact, we have a lot of strategic partnerships with other countries. For example, Vietnam brought a delegation to the U.S and I met with that group. It was about 13 SMEs that were interested in doing business with the U.S. A lot of them were furniture manufacturers who were interested in selling their furniture to hoteliers, selling their furniture to some of the big U.S. furniture brands. So we can act as sort of a mediator between U.S. companies and some potential customers that are housed abroad. And so that’s why SelectUSA is such a great forum to increase investment here in the U.S.
For companies that are seeking additional information on AAEI, where is the best place to look?
So I would encourage everyone to follow AAEI on LinkedIn. That’s the best place where you can get up-to-minute updates on everything that’s happening in trade. We also have on AAEI.org, we have our Presidential Action site. This is a great page where you can stay up to date on everything that’s happening with the first 100 days of the Trump administration as it relates to trade, where you can get updates on all the new tariffs, some FAQs on how to meet some of the tariff requirements as well as any major changes that come through the White House and Congress. And then of course, a lot of our webinars are free or the ones that aren’t free are a great opportunity to learn from some of AAEI experts. And then finally, I would encourage everyone to register and participate in AAEI’s annual conference. We really bring together all the experts in trade as well as all the trade service providers that are looking to showcase all the tools that companies are using now to grow global and remain compliant.
Eugene Laney, President and CEO of the American Association of Exporters and Importers, AAEI. Thanks for joining us.
Thank you for having me.
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