Jobs from Exports

As I said during a bipartisan White House meeting with the President this week, exports can play a big part in America’s economic recovery efforts.  Expanding access to world markets for goods and services made in the United States can help create jobs.

That means the administration needs to get to work on pending trade agreements with South Korea, Colombia and Panama.  Negotiations on these agreements have been sidelined, and it is hurting American workers.  While we’ve been standing still, our trading partners have been negotiating new trade agreements among themselves, and the United States is losing export opportunities as a result.

Recent bilateral trade agreements have proven their value to America’s economy.  Trade agreements with Chile, Morocco, Bahrain, Oman and countries in Central America and the Dominican Republic resulted in trade deficits becoming trade surpluses.  Trade agreements with Singapore, Australia and Peru increased our bilateral trade surpluses, and substantially so in the case of Singapore and Australia.

The independent International Trade Commission has said that trade agreements with South Korea and Colombia would likely result in a net increase in U.S. exports and an overall increase in America’s gross domestic product in the billions of dollars.  In the case of Panama, the trade commission said that U.S. exports could increase as much as 145 percent.

With America’s economy in trouble, there’s no excuse for neglecting these opportunities and even abdicating them to other countries around the world.  I hope the President decides to break the political gridlock over trade and take immediate action to help American workers.  I’ve worked in Congress over a long period of time with Republicans and Democrats to promote export opportunities, and look forward to continuing those productive efforts.