U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk Tuesday sought to make the case for increased foreign trade to boost efforts to rebuild the economy.
Kirk reiterated Obama's goal, first articulated at the State of the Union, to double U.S. exports over the next five years, an expansion that would support 2 million new jobs.
"Today, exports account for more than one in every $10 of America's income," he said, according to the text of his remarks as prepared for delivery. "Exports support millions of jobs across the country. And in the last half of 2009 exports alone accounted for more than half of all U.S. economic growth."
He added, "In 2010, as the world economy recovers, export-driven growth opportunities will continue to multiply."
Kirk said the Obama administration's goals were to reach a "balanced and ambitious" conclusion to the Doha Round trade talks and advance and ratify pending free trade agreements with Columbia, Korea and Panama.
"At the same time, we are taking steps to expand on and deliver additional job-creating opportunities to American businesses and workers in accordance with America's trade rights under our existing agreements," he said.
He added, "Beginning with frank negotiations and concluding in legal remedies when necessary, our enforcement efforts have already saved jobs in the American tire industry, won direct distribution rights for American content companies in China and challenged unjustified restrictions on U.S. exports of agricultural products."
One of the main goals is to crack down on intellectual property piracy, though Kirk said he hesitated to use that term for the theft in an age when piracy has come to seem glamorous.
"That kind of behavior is a plague on international commerce," he said. "We are working with trading partners around the world to develop a new Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement that will support America's competitive advantage in cutting edge industries and protect the intellectual property that goes into new products and new services."
He added, "Intellectual property theft doesn't just hurt American creators and investors. It can also harm the unwitting consumers of potentially harmful counterfeit goods."
However, Kirk said the U.S. would also strive to uphold basic international labor rights.
"When our trading partners violate their labor obligations in our trade agreements or deny foreign workers their internationally recognized rights, that tilts the playing field away from American businesses and workers," he said.
He added, "Successful trade policy is made when we get beyond the idea that new market openings and enforcement are somehow oppositional or that trade must always be a battle between international interests and domestic ones, business versus labor, trade versus jobs."
Another key area of opportunity is expanding market access in southeast Asian countries, which the International Monetary Fund predicts will be a source of important economic growth in coming years.
"Specifically, in 2010 we are looking to take specific steps to make it cheaper, easier and faster to trade in the region," he said. "We are working to address specific barriers to trade and investment in environmental goods and services."
He added, "These steps will help American exporters to succeed in the Asia-Pacific region and they will help [those] economies to grow greener."
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