Note:    Our May 8th Embassy trip to Washington, DC is filled to capacity. We have a limit of 80 people that we can take. However, we do encourage interested individuals to continue to send in registration forms and payment for this wonderful event.  In previous years we have taken roughly a dozen people off the wait list, due to cancellations. For those on the wait list, your check will not be cashed unless you actually go to DC with us. The registration form is available at https://fpaharrisburg.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/Embassy-Trip-2019-Registration-Form.pdf    For further information, contact Carol Nechemias at c4n@psu.edu.

Every May the Foreign Policy Association of Harrisburg organizes an educational day trip to our nation’s capital to delve into the complex relationship between the United States and one foreign country. In recent years, the selected countries have included Turkey, Greece, Germany, China, Poland, and Mexico. These previous trips have allowed us to directly learn from U.S. State Department officials and from Embassy representatives about a host of international controversies, from China’s building of military bases on islands in the South China Sea to Poland’s views of NATO and the EU to Mexico’s positions on trade and the building of a border “wall.”

For 2019, our selected country is Japan. On May 8, we will set off together by bus, stopping first at the U.S. State Department, where we will enjoy a first-class briefing by desk officers charged with covering controversies related to Japan. State Department briefings typically range across economic, security, and human rights issues, with time allowed for our questions. We receive significant insight into U.S. diplomacy—what the State Department defines as our key interests and how our nation seeks to advance those key goals vis-à-vis the country that forms our focal point.
Our next step involves lunch—not just any lunch, but a DELICIOUS restaurant meal connected with the cuisine of our country of focus. This year—Japan. Sit with friends and enjoy!

After lunch we are back on the bus, headed for the Japanese Embassy, where we will hear from the country’s Ambassador or from a highly placed Embassy officer who will provide an alternative point of view—Japanese interests and how they may differ, overlap, or coincide with U.S. policy. Again, there will be time for questions.

Finally, our Embassy hosts generally have welcomed us with a brief tour that highlights the building’s art and architecture. That often has proved a real treat, varying from the Polish Embassy, built in 1910 along the lines of a luxurious French mansion and replete with portraits and landscapes by a number of Polish artists of different eras to the stunning, modern Chinese Embassy, completed in 2006-08 on a design by I. M. Pei Partnership Architects. This year maintains that tradition, as we will be hosted in the Old Ambassador’s Residence at the Japanese Embassy, rarely open to the public and regarded as one of the most spectacular historical homes in DC.

For further information about the May 2019 trip, contact Dr. Carol Nechemias at c4n@psu.edu

Register by clicking HERE, filling out the form and mailing it back in.