President Barack Obama announced his plans to make good on his State of the Union promise to double U.S. exports within five years. At the Export-Import Bank conference, he said he would create an agency focused on trade. He also said he would enforce existing trade regulations, raise money to devote to increasing exports, and push forward stalled trade deals currently in the works.
“We shouldn’t assume that our leadership is guaranteed. When other markets are growing and other nations are competing, we’ve got to get even better. We need to secure our companies a level playing field. We need to guarantee American workers a fair shake. In other words, we need to up our game.”
In his State of the Union Address, Obama tied beefing up exports to job creation. Double-digit unemployment has bedeviled the country since the October 2008 crash. The president said in his address that 2 million jobs could result from increasing exports.
Some trade deals are opposed by the unions that support the Democratic Party. Trade expansion deals with Colombia, Panama, and South Korea have been opposed by unions on the grounds that it would lead to job losses, not job creation. The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), signed during the Clinton administration, has been criticized for causing job losses in the United States. NAFTA was a contentious issue during the 2008 presidential campaign.
“You can’t blame them for feeling that way. Other countries haven’t always played by the same set of rules. America hasn’t always enforced our trade rights or made sure that the benefits of trade are broadly shared. And we haven’t always done enough to help our workers adapt to a changing world,” said the president about U.S. workers’ mistrust of free trade deals.
In a related story, the U.S. trade deficit declined in January, according to the U.S. Commerce Department. The gap of $37.3 billion was 6.6 percent lower than it had been in December.
Increased exports had nothing to do with the smaller deficit. It was caused by the decline of oil and foreign car imports into the United States. Exports also fell by 0.3 percent.
“We shouldn’t assume that our leadership is guaranteed. When other markets are growing and other nations are competing, we’ve got to get even better. We need to secure our companies a level playing field. We need to guarantee American workers a fair shake. In other words, we need to up our game.”
In his State of the Union Address, Obama tied beefing up exports to job creation. Double-digit unemployment has bedeviled the country since the October 2008 crash. The president said in his address that 2 million jobs could result from increasing exports.
Some trade deals are opposed by the unions that support the Democratic Party. Trade expansion deals with Colombia, Panama, and South Korea have been opposed by unions on the grounds that it would lead to job losses, not job creation. The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), signed during the Clinton administration, has been criticized for causing job losses in the United States. NAFTA was a contentious issue during the 2008 presidential campaign.
“You can’t blame them for feeling that way. Other countries haven’t always played by the same set of rules. America hasn’t always enforced our trade rights or made sure that the benefits of trade are broadly shared. And we haven’t always done enough to help our workers adapt to a changing world,” said the president about U.S. workers’ mistrust of free trade deals.
In a related story, the U.S. trade deficit declined in January, according to the U.S. Commerce Department. The gap of $37.3 billion was 6.6 percent lower than it had been in December.
Increased exports had nothing to do with the smaller deficit. It was caused by the decline of oil and foreign car imports into the United States. Exports also fell by 0.3 percent.
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