What executive branch officials are important to foreign policy?

Answer 1

The United States Department of State is responsible for some aspects of the foreign affairs of the United States, often on behalf of individual American citizens and American entities interacting abroad. The State Department is headed by the Secretary of State.

The Director of National Intelligence is responsible to the President on issues of national security, which often have international implications.

The National Security Council is headed by the National Security Advisor, who, with the Executive Cabinet in the areas of their purview, advise the President as to foreign policy in these areas of national interest.

The United States National Intelligence Community is comprised of sixteen element-agencies headed by responsible officials whose purviews often have foreign-policy implications.

It is also important to note that State executive officials ordinarily do not pursue formal foreign-policy functions. One notable exception of quasi-formality is where border-State Governors and their offices and Canadian Provincial Premiers and their offices directly interact in the backchannel (i.e., without an exchange of diplomatic notes between diplomats) on regional issues such as the Arctic or the Great Lakes.

There is also a formal International Joint Commission, a binational U.S.-Canadian commission based upon the Boundary Waters Treaty of 1909, and the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement of 1978, and the Air Quality Agreement of 1991, in the U.S., and upon the Boundary Waters Treaty Act, an Act of the Parliament of Canada.

Chapter 20 of the North American Free Trade Agreementprovides for independent dispute settlement mechanisms on trade issues covered by NAFTA between Canada, the U.S., and Mexico.

The North American Aerospace Defense Command is a joint U.S.-Canadian military command in the area of continential aerospace defense, which integrates a Canadian flag officer as Deputy Commander of this U.S. command.

These are notable because U.S.-Canadian international interaction is much more extensive and extra-diplomatically developed than that between the U.S. and many other countries. It is often characterized by backchannel and alternatively-addressed forms of interaction, other than the diplomatic modes and methods overseen by the State Department. However, the State Department does conduct aspects of U.S. foreign affairs with Canada as the U.S does with many other foreign nations.

There are other notable entities between the U.S. and other foreign countries as well, but which are usually of significantly less complexity and independence of the State Department, as most foreign policy interests and issues fall under the purview of the above-mentioned organizations, primarily the State Department.