Click here to read the article
Adams and Reese Senior Policy Advisor Ed McMullen, who formerly served as Donald Trump’s ambassador to Switzerland and Liechtenstein from 2017 to 2021, forecasts “unprecedented” South Carolina influence in an upcoming Trump presidential administration in an interview with The Post and Courier, a South Carolina publication.
This federal involvement will help the Palmetto State in its economic development needs over the next two to four years. McMullen predicts that South Carolinians will fill key federal roles in the next coming months. “The number of South Carolinians, I predict, will be substantial,” said McMullen.
For example, Charleston’s Scott Bessent, a Wall Street veteran and hedge fund manager, has been picked by Trump as the secretary of the U.S. Department of the Treasury.
“With Scott being in that role, and with the talent he will tap, we will see an opportunity like we’ve never seen for South Carolina to be impacting public policy in Washington,” said McMullen. “Scott is going to be impacting the future of the economy. … He has involvement with every lever of our economy. So where South Carolina benefits is that we have a lot of talented people who Scott has worked with over the years, who he will tap to serve, along with people from all over the country.”
At Adams and Reese, McMullen is a leading member of the Intersection of Business and Government Practice Group. From the firm’s Charleston, South Carolina, and Washington, D.C. offices, he provides economic development and foreign direct investment guidance and strategy to a broad range of clients, and he has worked with clients in public policy, politics, and business, both nationally and internationally for more than 30 years.
During his service as Ambassador, McMullen focused on FDI and met more than 300 CEOs and chairs of boards of directors throughout Switzerland and Liechtenstein, building relationships and a favorable environment for economic growth. Thanks to his leadership in this initiative, Switzerland moved from the eighth largest to the sixth-largest foreign direct investor in the United States. He is a frequent guest of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.