The Obama Administration recently made its strongest statement yet in support of free trade agreements. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton commented on the challenges of implementing trade agreements: It does mean you have to take on entrenched interests and respond to concerns about new competition, while making the case over and over again as to why the people in your country will benefit from expanded trade. I know this is difficult. Although I am out of politics now, I understand how hard it is to tell a longtime supporter something …
In April, I visited South Korea and met with government and military leaders to promote vital U.S. interests in East Asia. Among those priorities is the long overdue passage of the South Korea-United States Free Trade Agreement (KORUS), which has been stalled in typical Washington fashion since 2007. If ratified, KORUS will stimulate America’s economic recovery – without government spending – by increasing U.S. exports and creating jobs in the U.S. According to analysts in the Democrat-led Senate Finance Committee, data taken from the independent, nonpartisan U.S. International Trade Commission …
The U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis just announced that the trade deficit for March increased to $48.2 billion. The federal budget deficit plays a major role in creating U.S. trade deficits. When the government sells Treasury bonds to finance the budget deficit, it competes with U.S. exporters and private borrowers for scarce foreign dollars. For example, in January the federal government borrowed $46.483 billion from abroad, and the United States ran a trade deficit of $46.969 billion. Trade deficits are not necessarily a cause for concern. But in this case, …
Consider three countries: 1) In Country 1, imports of goods and services are 29 percent the size of the country’s overall economy. 2) In Country 2, imports are 22 percent the size of the country’s economy. 3) In Country 3, imports are 14 percent the size of the country’s economy. Which of these countries relies the most on imports?
With Mother’s Day around the corner, you better look out. It’s going to cost more than usual to send your mom a bouquet of flowers this year. Earlier this year, Congress allowed the Andean Trade Preference and Drug Eradication Act (ATPDEA) to expire. As a result: U.S. flower importers face higher prices. Taxes on flowers imported from Colombia, which provides 70 percent of all cut flowers sold in the United States, are now at the highest rate in 18 years. There are fewer U.S. jobs in industries that rely on …
This time about three years ago, a California Democrat exercised legislative power to do something unprecedented in America’s international trade policymaking. Effectively ending more than five decades of bipartisan consensus on trade policy, on April 10, 2008, then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her like-minded colleagues unilaterally and irresponsibly amended House rules to circumvent the 90-day timetable for taking up the Colombia Free Trade Agreement (FTA) that President Bush had submitted to Congress—thereby dooming it.
Recently, the Organization for International Investment released a report showing that the United States received $194.5 billion in foreign direct investment (FDI) in 2010. This FDI is responsible for millions of jobs, billions of dollars in exports, and higher wages for U.S. workers. FDI occurs when someone in another country directly builds a facility in the U.S., like the $1.5 billion Toyota Tundra plant in San Antonio, Texas, that employs nearly 1,700 people. FDI does not include the billions of dollars that foreigners invest in the U.S. each year by …
The U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis today announced that U.S. exports for January were $4.4 billion higher than in December. This is good news for U.S. exporters. The bureau also reported that Americans imported $10.5 billion more in January than in December. This is good news, too. As President Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers recently reported, economic growth in other countries leads to increased U.S. exports. When people in other countries escape poverty and become richer, more of them are able to afford U.S.-made products. Just as economic growth in …
The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) just released its 2011 Trade Policy Agenda, which highlights several initiatives designed to boost exports. Nowhere in the 443-page document is a mention of the biggest barrier to U.S. exports: the federal budget deficit. Budget deficits require the government to borrow money that otherwise could be spent on U.S.-made exports or invested in our economy’s productive private sector. In 2010, the federal government financed its deficit spending by selling $708 billion in Treasury securities to foreign buyers. To put that in perspective, …
The March 3 working meeting between Mexico’s President Felipe Calderon and U.S. President Barack Obama loomed as a showdown over Mexico’s sputtering war against crime and increasingly prickly relations between Mexico and the U.S. The encounter, however, took a sunny turn when the two presidents agreed to focus on trade, regulation, and energy issues rather than come to dagger points over Mexico’s seemingly out-of-control crime war. The presidents agreed on a plan to settle a long-standing dispute over a North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) commitment to allow a limited …
