Last week, Whitney Baird, USCIB President & CEO, and Alice Slayton Clark, USCIB SVP for Trade, Investment, & Digital Policy, were in Lima, Peru to attend the APEC CEO Forum and to join the National Center for APEC (NCAPEC) in leading business meetings with APEC government leaders. 

The APEC CEO Forum and its accompanying Sustainable Futures Forum featured panels and discussions on enhancing environment, energy transition, inclusive development, healthcare, and digital issues, with a significant focus on AI.  

Baird moderated a side event on the importance of an open digital economy in enabling the transition to a formal economy. This panel featured Úrsula Desilú León Chempén, Minister of Foreign Trade and Tourism in the Government of Peru; Eduardo Coello, Regional President for Latin America and Caribbean at Visa; and other USCIB member companies sharing successful public-private partnership stories. 

Baird also led a discussion with bicameral, bipartisan congressional trade staff, advancing business priorities for 2025, including on tariffs, investor safeguards, China de-risking, EU regulatory overreach, and US-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) review. USCIB also advanced member positions at high level side meetings with trade ministers and heads of state including the Philippines, New Zealand, Vietnam, and Thailand. 

Of significance, the APEC Leaders’ Meeting resulted in the Machu Picchu Declaration on economic growth objectives and a joint ministerial statement that focused on priorities linked to Peru’s host year. These priorities included trade and investment for inclusive and interconnected growth, innovation and digitalization to promote the transition to the formal economy, and sustainable growth for resilient development and opportunities for all. 

Leaders adopted the Lima Roadmap to Promote the Transition to the Formal and Global Economies (2025-2040), addressing a key concern for Peru’s economy, which operates 70 percent in the informal sector. The roadmap promotes information sharing, technical assistance, capacity building, trade facilitation, regulatory frameworks to reduce administrative burdens, strategies to enhance innovation and digitalization, and more public-private partnerships. 

On trade, leaders adopted the Ichma Statement on A New Look at the Free Trade Area of the Asia-Pacific Agenda, reaffirming support for the Free Trade Area of the Asia-Pacific (FTAAP) through enhanced information sharing, capacity building, and technical cooperation. 

Also of note, President Joe Biden met with President Xi Jinping of China in Lima for the third time to review bilateral relations and ensure a stable hand-off to the incoming Trump Administration. The meeting focused on managing competition and maintaining open communication lines to address mutual concerns.