One of the most telling pieces of evidence to emerge about the effectiveness of Guernsey international lobbying emerged last week after the chief minister and the States chief executive arrived back from Washington.

The good news was that Democrat Senator Carl Levin had modified his Stop Tax Haven Abuse Act so that it no longer mistakenly lists the island as an ‘offshore secrecy jurisdiction’, a damaging form of blacklisting.

The better news, however, is that the island delegation was able to have access to no fewer than 15 leading officials while they were in the US.

For almost a decade, the States has been seeking to foster links with the US government and it says much that the island is able to gain access to so much of officials’ time.

Not only is a 25-square mile speck in the English Channel remote from American awareness, lawmakers there have many other pressing matters on their hands.

Despite the on-going political debate over deficit reduction and ‘debt ceiling’ legislation in the United States, the time and serious consideration devoted to these meetings by the many Washington officials met by the chief minister and the chief executive was impressive and a clear testimony to a willingness to engage with Guernsey.

Further evidence of the relationships that have been established emerged towards the end of last year when the Multistate Tax Commission, an advisory group for the 50 American states, also chose to remove a similar mistaken reference to Guernsey as an uncooperative tax haven in model legislation that it recommends to its state officials.

That took several attempts to bring off but it does show that the island has a strong message to sell, even to an initially deeply sceptical audience.

There are, however, benefits for the US. An Internal Revenue Service official praised Guernsey for its continuing efforts to remain at the forefront of international standards, so this island becomes a stick with which to beat other jurisdictions.

That’s fine as a strategy – as long as the industry can survive being in the vanguard of regulation.