Illinois companies are well-represented on the council of business leaders President Barack Obama has created to devise a strategy to double America’s exports of goods and services in the next five years to help spur job growth.
Obama unveiled the trade initiative in his State of the Union address this year, saying he sought to open overseas markets through trade agreements and to ensure that U.S. companies compete on equal terms with their foreign counterparts.
Patricia Woertz, who heads agriculture giant Archer Daniels Midland Co., and United Airlines Chief Executive Glenn Tilton were named to the 28-member President’s Export Council Wednesday.
Obama had previously asked Boeing Co. CEO Jim McNerney to chair the council of business and labor leaders who will offer their advice on how to best boost exports, employment and growth.
However, the initiative faces steep challenges as Chinese and other Asian manufacturers make inroads into American strongholds such as aerospace and automobile. The Obama Administration also has yet to push Congress to ratify free-trade agreements negotiated by the Bush Administration with Korea, Panama and Colombia.
In a report issued Wednesday, the White House said that in the first four months of 2010, U.S. exports increased 17 percent from a year earlier as companies benefited from the global economic rebound.
“Export growth leads to job growth and economic growth,” Obama said in remarks Wednesday. He noted that exports accounted for nearly 7 percent of total employment, one in three manufacturing jobs, and supported 10.3 million jobs in all. “So, at a time when jobs are in short supply, building exports is an imperative,” he added.
Other executives named to the council Wednesday include: Alan Mulally, CEO of Ford Motor Co. and the former head of Boeing’s commercial airplane business; Jeffrey Kindler, CEO of Pfizer; Robert Iger, CEO of The Walt Disney Co.; and Ivan Seidenberg, CEO of Verizon.
You want to tear down trade barriers? Bi-lateral free trade agreements.
There is a misconception that this will send jobs overseas. With South America, for example, we have one-way free trade agreements with countries. Americans buy products manufacturered there, without the tariffs. These countries want to buy our products, but protectionism policies throw tariffs on our exports and drive their prices up. Drive them up so far that the higher shipping costs involved with shipping in from the Far East are still less expensive than American-manufacturered products.
Drop the nonsense. If we feel a country is worth partnering up with for our purchases, the least we can do is extend them the same level of respect.