John G. Sarpa

If you're one of those for whom chamber of commerce conjures up an image of businessmen in a small town, who spend their time sending out pretty brochures asking people to spend their vacations there or build a factory—forget it. That's a stereotype that doesn't even apply to South Succotash. On the other hand, even if you have always known better, a visit to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in Washington, D.C., could be an eye-opener.

The U.S. Chamber is the largest federation of business and professional organizations in the world, with more than 220,000 members, of which 216,000 are business corporations. Its staff people, unlike their counterparts in either South Succotash or New York, do such things as help negotiate international treaties, argue cases in front of the Supreme Court, and walk the halls of Congressbuttonholing U.S. Senators and testifying at committee hearings. Among them today is John Sarpa, a 31-year-old lawyer and whiz-kid who for three years has been the chamber's Director for Middle East Affairs and for International Tax Policy.

Stimulating Exports

As Middle East director, Mr. Sarpa's major mission has been to help stimulate U.S. exports and joint-venture investments to the Middle East, as well as eliminate or deter unfair restrictions on Middle East capital moving in the other direction.

Mr. Sarpa's responsibilities in the tax area are global, but much of what he does while wearing that hat has an impact on the Middle East as well—sometimes more there than anywhere else.

"For example, this was particularly true on the matter of taxation of Americans working overseas," Mr. Sarpa says. "So many Americans who were working in places like Saudi Arabia—as the only expatriates paying taxes to their home governments—became too expensive, and vast numbers were replaced by nationals from other countries. We at the chamber played a major role in getting the tax law amended to allow exemptions for these Americans, and now lots are going back." For a time, Mr. Sarpa himself chaired a strategy group put together by a number of organizations which were combining to fight the tax law.

It is on Middle East issues per se, rather than on tax questions, that Mr. Sarpa spends most of his time. For example, for years he has been breaking his lance on the anti-boycott laws, which he thinks have gone much further than Congress intended and have had a "chilling effect" on American business interests. How? "Lost contracts," Mr. Sarpa says, "as well as potential contracts that never even get off the ground because of the intimidating effect of the law."

A major problem, he says, is the provision which makes it illegal for a company to answer a question from a boycott authority—even if the question concerns a false allegation. Yet if it does not answer in six months, it will be put on the blacklist. "We know for a fact that sometimes the false allegation has been passed along to the boycott authority by a competitor," Mr. Sarpa says. "So we have a situation where even a foreign company can use a U.S. law to hurt a U.S. business." One thing the chamber would like to see, he adds, is a change in the law that would allow a company to provide to a boycott authority any information which "is already on the record at government agencies and available to the public."

Galloping Through Washington

But Mr. Sarpa does not spend all his time charging down to Congress on his white horse. Often he gallops over to the executive agencies, such as the Agency for International Development or the Export Import Bank, to suggest specific ways for them to adjust their policies and procedures in ways which will help trade and investment. "It's no secret," he says "that the American government apparatus for supporting the interests of U.S. business overseas is a broken-down machine when compared to the finely-tuned, high-power mechanism that foreign governments make available to the businessmen who compete with us."

Government agencies seek out the chamber, too. One morning recently Mr. Sarpa met for two hours with the chief U.S. negotiator on an investment treaty that is about to be concluded with Egypt. "The Egyptians had asked for a lot of last-minute changes, and it was helpful to the negotiator to find out just which requested changes were unacceptable to the American business community, and which we could live with."

Mr. Sarpa's involvement with the Middle East is no accident. When half-way through his undergraduate years at Indiana University, he got to know British diplomat Lord Caradon, who kindled in him an interest in the Middle East that kept growing. "The reason I came east to go to law school at Georgetown is that I realized I wouldn't get that much exposure to the Middle East in Indiana," he says with a laugh. After graduating he worked at the Overseas Private Investment Corporation and later at the World Peace Through Law Center before joining the Chamber in 1977, as associate Middle East Director.

In 1979, Mr. Sarpa received the Outstanding Young Men of America Award.