Strategic Government Affairs
Aegis creates and implements innovative national and international policy promulgations that protect, or increase, clients’ national and international commercial interests by forming and directing unconventional alliances with policy makers at the Federal, state, and local levels of government and their constituencies via tailored media campaigns.
Superior Solutions: Creating Mutually Beneficial Results
Synopsis: Aegis, on behalf of an international dairy consortium, acted as the designated negotiator with the Administration working alongside two senior U.S. Senators on an international trade pact. The trade agreement, if passed unaltered, would have negatively impacted the consortium's dominance of the dairy products under its control by allowing unfair competition from international dairy exporters contrary to the client's business interests. Aegis was able to negotiate a solution, known as the "cheese swap," that protected and increased the consortium's business holdings in the U.S. and abroad.
Results: Aegis successfully altered the trade pact in favor of its clients and crafted a solution that also produced greater benefits for its domestic dairy clients. The "cheese swap" produced beneficial results for Aegis' clients by changing import quota categories; allowing for more specialty cheeses, carrying with them a higher profit margin, to be exported to the U.S. The ability of Aegis to craft a mutually beneficial solution protected the interests of the domestic producers by removing the unfair competitive advantage given to foreign exporters under the original legislation.
"As I recall, they [USDA] turned it [the Cheese Swap] down about four times, even writing to affected ambassadors to make their position clear...due to Aegis' efforts USTR simply told USDA that it had no intention of losing greater legislation over this issue and forced USDA into submission". - Tom May, President, Trugman-Nash, Inc.
