Obama’s Plan to Double US Exports Targets Asian Economies

Jakarta Globe, February 04, 2010

US President Barack Obama. (AFP Photo)

Washington. US President Barack Obama has ordered a cabinet-level group to oversee a new strategy to double exports in five years, mainly to rapidly growing Asia, including Indonesia, with a drive to remove trade barriers, his administration said on Thursday.

Under the National Export Initiative, the government will provide US companies with greater access to export financing and help them penetrate emerging high-growth markets such as Indonesia, China, India and Brazil.

Last week Obama picked Jakarta for his administration’s first overseas trade mission as the US aims to make good on a pledge to boost exports of climate-friendly products, US Commerce Secretary Gary Locke said.

The policy will create an “export promotion cabinet” reporting to the president, including leaders of the commerce, state and agriculture departments and the US Trade Representative.

The move “represents the first time the US will have a government-wide export promotion strategy with focused attention from the president and his cabinet,” Locke said.

The policy proposes to identify opportunities in fast-growing sectors like environmental goods and services, renewable energy, health care and biotechnology.

“If we just increased our exports to Asia by a percentage point, by a fraction, it would mean hundreds of thousands, maybe millions of jobs here in the United States,” Obama said. “And it’s easily doable.”

US exports to the Asia-Pacific region were up more than 8 percent in 2008 over the preceding year to $747 billion, figures from the US Trade Representative’s Office showed.

“It’s all about jobs. And if done right, President Obama and I firmly believe that a smart, aggressive, progressive trade policy can be a critical part of our overall economic recovery program,” the president’s top trade official Ron Kirk said.

Agence France-Presse