Thank you, Lena for that warm introduction. It’s an honor to be here with so many amazing cross-border entrepreneurs.
As President Biden said after his first bilateral meeting with Prime Minister Trudeau: “The United States has no closer and no more important friend than Canada. Our nations share a close geography and history that will forever bind us together, but our values are even more consequential.”
These values – freedom, equality, justice – make us stronger, together. And they are integral to our shared small business economy. Canadians and Americans share an entrepreneurial spirit that has powered our national economies for generations.
Today, that willingness to be innovative –adapt to changing marketplaces, meet customers’ needs and develop new ways to deliver products and services -- has never been stronger. During the past year as the world weathered this pandemic and economic crisis, small businesses pivoted to survive. And our federal, state and local governments moved quickly to provide relief to small businesses – because of their outsized role in our national and global economy.
The incredible ingenuity I witnessed as the small business leader in California and now nationally makes me proud to stand before you as the voice for America’s 30 million small businesses and innovative startups.
Small business ownership is an important pathway to opportunity and wealth creation – generational wealth that can transform families and communities.
And here in the United States, as in Canada, we recognize that our diversity contributes greatly to our entrepreneurial success as the incredible range of cultures, the diaspora, helps fuel the sparks of innovation – bringing new ideas and ways to solve problems.
That diversity is reflected in our small businesses. In fact, immigrant entrepreneurs start businesses at higher rates than the rest of the U.S. population -- representing 28 percent of our small business owners.
Entrepreneurship is about fostering what is best about us…our ability to build community, create, solve problems and using it to forge a path forward for all of society.
And, if we’re going to build on the strength of our diversity, we must continue to put out the welcome mat for entrepreneurs looking to tap into the wealth of opportunities we have to offer.
The SBA was created to support that entrepreneurial spirit and ensure that small businesses remain the driving force of our nation’s economy. We connect small businesses and startups with the capital, markets and networks they need to start and grow.
And the Biden-Harris Administration is committed to equity to ensure SBA’s small business support networks and startup ecosystems remain vibrant and inclusive of everyone.
Throughout the pandemic, the SBA has scaled up to meet the enormity of this crisis – and its impact on all our small businesses.
We have evolved from a 40 billion dollar portfolio to now delivering more than a trillion dollars in relief to small businesses – through forgivable loans, disaster loans, and billions more in debt relief and grants targeted to the hardest-hit industries such as food and beverage and performing arts venues – all to help small businesses stay afloat after millions were shuttered through no fault of their own.
At the same time, we understand that the best thing we can do for our small businesses is to help our nation recover from COVID. Thanks to the Biden-Harris administration’s whole-of-government response and the hard work of partners on the ground, we have vaccinated 66 percent of adult Americans. The virus is in retreat.
Now, as we look toward a post-COVID economy, we’ll be leveraging our programs and services to help small businesses recover and sustain.
With nearly $2 billion dollars a day flowing back and forth across our shared border, our partnerships with Canadian entrepreneurs will be an important part of this future.
From North American e-commerce – which is worth just under a trillion dollars and is growing at a rate of 13 percent a year – to trade policies that have opened doors between the U.S. and Canada for SME’s– we’re looking for new ways to harness our combined innovation and creativity to build back better, together.
I look forward to a fruitful discussion about how we can best help all entrepreneurs take advantage of our shared markets and find new opportunities for growth.