Matthew M. Rooney, a career member of the Senior Foreign Service, joined Western Hemisphere Affairs on December 6, 2010 as Deputy Assistant Secretary with responsibility for Mexico, Canada and Regional Economic Policy. He was previously Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary in the Bureau of Legislative Affairs, where he coordinated the State Department’s agenda before the U.S. Congress. Before moving to Legislative Affairs, Mr. Rooney was Director of the Office of Economic Policy and Summit of the Americas Coordination in Western Hemisphere Affairs, where he was closely involved in the successful Summit in Trinidad, which launched a new relationship with the Americas based on collaborative approaches to shared problems. He led interagency and international negotiations that produced the Secretary’s Pathways to Prosperity in the Americas initiative, designed to engage with our key partners on strategies for ensuring that the benefits of economic growth are broadly shared in our societies, and the President’s Energy and Climate Partnership of the Americas, an initiative to deal constructively with the twin issues of energy and climate.
Since joining the Foreign Service in 1985, Mr. Rooney has served in the Ivory Coast, Germany, Gabon and El Salvador focusing on macroeconomic policy, energy exploration and trade issues. In Washington, he worked on civil aviation negotiations and was a Pearson Congressional Fellow in the office of Senator Fred Thompson, focusing on trade promotion programs and the international implications of fiscal policy. As Consul General in Munich, he managed a regional post of 120 staff and coordinated a vigorous public diplomacy campaign to overcome the crisis in German-American relations stemming from the U.S. action in Iraq.
Mr. Rooney studied Economics, German and French at the University of Texas at Austin and received his Master’s Degree in International Management at the University of Texas at Dallas.
