Colleagues, I'll call the meeting to order.
I have a couple of points before we get going.
One, we have two witnesses with us today, but they are not in person, and they're not even by teleconference. We do have them hooked up by audio only, unfortunately. I would ask all of you, when you're going to be asking questions, to please identify yourselves so the witnesses realize who they're speaking with, and who's asking the questions. It's a little weird, I understand, but unfortunately it's all we can do at this point in time.
Secondly, we only have the two witnesses. I'm not sure exactly how long the questioning will take. That will be up to committee members. If we have exhausted all of our questions before one o'clock, which I anticipate we will, we'll suspend, and then go into committee business. I'm anticipating committee business perhaps around 12:30 p.m., although it might be earlier, and that all depends upon the people around this table.
With that, I think we'll commence.
As I mentioned, we do have two witnesses with us today, Mr. Eugene Cornelius, Deputy Associate Administrator, Office of International Trade; and Mr. James Parker, Acting Director of the State Trade Expansion Program, Office of International Trade.
Mr. Cornelius, please go ahead with your opening statement.