International Trade Administration-United States Commercial Serivce

Howdy y'all! It's been a crazy couple of weeks for me. Since school and my internship started I have been non-stop! No complaints though, I'd much rather be insanely busy than sitting at home bored. That being said let me give you an introduction about my internship with the United States Department of Commerce.

Within the USDOC there is the International Trade Administration. The job of the ITA is to strengthen and promote free trade for the United States around the globe. The US Commercial Service is a subset of ITA, and that is where I am. So if you were to look at it like a family tree, the US Department of Commerce would be the grandparents, International Trade Administration would be the parents, and Commercial Service would be ITA's child. That being said US Commercial Service assists US companies with foreign buyers across the globe in the exporting of US goods and promotion of US jobs. The US Commercial Service is located in over 160 cities across the world. We work with United States Embassies and Consulates in over 80 countries to help US companies compete in the global market.

As an intern, I assist the International Trade Specialists in my office. I have an array of duties. Just to name a few activities that I have done thus far throughout my time there include:

• Research in policy and regulatory issues in global markets
• Research and analysis on commercial markets throughout the globe
• Accompany trade specialists to meetings with local business owners interested in exporting their goods
• Database management

That's just a sliver of what I do and will be doing during my time as an intern. There is a lot for me to learn and I look forward to the coming weeks.