NEWS

Extract from US Chamber President and CEO, Thomas J.  Donohue said today in his annual “State of American Business” address regarding trade:

Expanding American Trade

“The reality we face is clear. If we want more growth, more trade would help a lot.

The president-elect says he wants to expand trade and negotiate strong, new trade deals for our country. We agree.

These new agreements should lower the barriers raised by other countries against exports of American products and services. They should protect intellectual property and our digital industries through tough enforcement. They should ensure that the investments our companies make abroad are protected by the rule of law, on a level playing field. And they should provide for the efficient, seamless, and safe movement of goods and data across borders.

The Chamber has led the fight for tough, enforceable trade agreements. We need more of them.

As for the Trans-Pacific Partnership, there ought to be a serious deliberation on how we can achieve the economic and geopolitical objectives of the TPP. Inaction on the part of the United States creates an opportunity for other countries to gain benefits for themselves at the expense of American workers, American businesses, and American influence.

We’ll also encourage the administration to remember that our trade with Canada and Mexico supports 14 million American jobs — and much of that trade depends on NAFTA. But it’s a fact that NAFTA is 23 years old, so we welcome the discussion on how it can be modernized and strengthened.

The bottom line is that if we are going to “Hire American,” we are going to have to “Sell American”—sell our goods and services to the 95 percent of the world’s customers who don’t live in the United States.

Trade is already an enormous benefit to our domestic economy, to our small businesses, to the American consumer, and to the 40 million American workers whose jobs depend on trade.

Our big challenge is how to preserve and expand these benefits while also helping those workers and communities who have been hurt—not just by trade but by technology, automation, and the realities of a global economy.”

To read or see the speech in full, please see here.