At a hearing on Thursday considering the nomination of William Hagerty of Tennessee to serve as U.S. ambassador to Japan, Senator Bob Corker made the following remarks in support of the nomination. Senator Lamar Alexander introduced Mr.
Hagerty to members of the committee.
Senator Corker said, “I think [Senator Lamar Alexander] has done an outstanding job of laying out these credentials, and I agree that you are one of the most outstanding appointments that President Trump has made.
“The relationship between our two countries speaks for itself, and having [Prime Minister of Japan Shinzo] Abe here as one of the first visitors, I think, speaks to how the Trump administration and our country feel about Japan.
“I do want to say that the ambassador [of Japan], Ambassador Sasae, is here with us, a friend, someone that we work with constantly. We welcome him here to this hearing.
“To my friends here, I will speak on a little different level about this nominee. I have seen him in business and the outstanding things that he has done there.
“I have seen him represent our state and cause it to be the most important state relative to job creation in our country and the most heralded.
“I have seen him come into an administration that had some really tough issues and clean up that needed to be done on some economic issues, and I’ve seen him negotiate those in an appropriate and steadfast manner, while at the same time bringing people together.
“I know his family. I know Lamar mentioned the Boy Scout issues.
“I was with Bill recently when he was at a weekend boy scout event, and it rained the entire weekend and he looked pretty haggardly – a little different than he does today – but he is an outstanding family person. He and his wife, Chrissy, actually met in Japan. So they’re homecoming back to the country in which they met, where he will be heralded much in the way Howard Baker was when he came.
“I visited Japan when Senator Baker was our ambassador, and I saw the tremendous ties between our countries.
“And the fact is that Tennessee is a place that has a very warm spot in Japanese hearts. It really does.
“And I think that Bill Hagerty – as good a job as Senator Baker did, and we were all so proud of his service – I have a feeling that Bill Hagerty is going to raise the bar.
“So, I am really, really proud of this nomination and so glad that I believe he will be ascending to this position quickly. And I know that he will represent the very best of country.”
Senator Lamar Alexander said, “Bill Hagerty, if approved by the committee, would go to Japan not only able to speak the language, but having lived and worked there, and understanding how close ties between Japan and the United States can create bigger paychecks for Americans as well as for the Japanese. My hope is that the committee will promptly approve his nomination and that he will soon be on the job and his children will be in their respective Scout troops in Japan.”
Senator Alexander's full remarks follow:
I’m here today to strongly and respectfully recommend to the committee that it approve the president’s nomination of Bill Hagerty to serve as U.S. Ambassador to Japan.
In 2013, when Bill Hagerty was the Commissioner of Economic and Community Development for Tennessee, he gave a speech entirely in Japanese at the American Embassy in Tokyo. Now, I’ve looked it up, there have been 16 United States Ambassadors to Tokyo, a very distinguished group since World War II: a five star general, two former Senate Majority Leaders, a former Vice President of the United States, and a former Speaker of the House, the daughter of a former president, and so far as I know, none of them were able to do what Bill Hagerty did in 2013 when he made that speech entirely in Japanese at the American Embassy in Tokyo.
That’s just one reason why I think Bill Hagerty is one of President Trump’s best nominations.
He was born in Tennessee and graduated from Vanderbilt University. He was associate editor of the Vanderbilt Law Review. He worked as a consultant for the Boston Consulting Group. During his final three years there, he lived in Tokyo, and he served as senior executive managing their clients around Asia.
He was selected by President George H.W. Bush to be on his staff. There he worked on trade, commerce, defense and telecommunications issues.
He was a White House fellow.
He was founder and chairman of a company in private life that became the third largest medical research company.
He founded his own private equity and investment firm.
From 2011-2015, he was the Commissioner of Economic and Community Development for Tennessee, and in that role, working with Governor Haslam, secured $15 billion in capital investments and 90,000 jobs for our state. Two of those years Tennessee was the number one state for economic development and the number one state for job creation through Foreign Direct Investment.
He is a distinguished Eagle Scout. He was head of a capital campaign for the Scouts.
He served on the board of the Far East Council of the Scouts, encouraging growth of Boy Scouts throughout Asia.
One way he intends to continue that mission is that his two sons, who are here today, will join their respective troops in Japan following his confirmation.
And his wife Chrissy would want me to quickly add that there are two aspiring Girl Scouts in their family who will have their time to do that too.
It’s not only one of the best positions but one of most important.
There’s a reason why we’ve had such a distinguished list of ambassadors since World War II, including our former [U.S. Senate] Majority Leader Howard Baker, Jr. from Tennessee.
Mike Mansfield, another former Majority Leader who was ambassador, used to say in every speech he made that the Japanese-American alliance is the most important two-country relationship in the world “bar none.”
Ambassador Mansfield said that so often that Americans in Tokyo used to refer to our embassy as the “Bar-None Ranch.”
If you’ll permit a little parochialism, Mr. Hagerty comes from a state, Tennessee, that has the most important relationship with Japan of any state, “bar none.”
That began about 40 years ago. I remember President Carter saying to me as a new governor and to the other governors, “go to Japan, persuade them to make here what they sell here.” Off we all went. During my first 24 months as governor, I spent three weeks in Japan and eight weeks on Japan-American relations. I explained to Tennesseans that I thought I could do more good for our state in Japan than I could in Washington, D.C.
That turned out to be true -- Nissan, Bridgestone, Komatsu, other companies came. By the mid-80s, we had about 10 percent of all the Japanese capital investment in the United States. This has continued. Nissan and Bridgestone have North America’s largest auto plants and tire plants in Tennessee. And, with Mr. Hagerty’s help, Bridgestone, as well as Nissan, decided to locate its North American headquarters in our state.
So, Bill Hagerty, if approved by the committee, would go to Japan not only able to speak the language, but having lived and worked there, and understanding how close ties between Japan and the United States can create bigger paychecks for Americans as well as for the Japanese.
So, my hope is that the committee will promptly approve his nomination and that he will soon be on the job and his children will be in their respective Scout troops in Japan.
Thank you very much for allowing me to come this morning.