Trade

Where We Stand

International trade supports millions of American jobs. One in three manufacturing jobs depends on exports, and one in three acres on American farms is planted for hungry consumers overseas. More than 95% of consumers of American goods live outside of our borders, and their demand for American goods and services is growing every day. These overseas markets represent 73% of the world’s purchasing power and 87% of its economic growth.  

Booming exports generated more than a quarter of U.S. GDP growth in 2007, helping counter the downturn in the housing and finance sectors (U.S. Office of the Trade Representative). In 2010, developing countries purchased 53% of U.S. goods and exports, leading to a spike in sales to East Asia and the Americas.

Combining sales of manufactured goods, farm products, services, and natural resources, the United States tops both Germany and China by about $200 billion as the world’s top exporter.

Many foreign countries still impose steep tariffs on U.S. exports, while the U.S. market is already open to imports. For American workers and farmers, that's just not fair.

New trade agreements are the solution to this problem. By eliminating foreign tariffs and other barriers to U.S. exports, trade agreements create a level playing field for American workers and farmers. Exports will continue to play an important role in U.S. economic stimulus and growth.

The U.S. Chamber is committed to expanding global engagement through a robust agenda that generates jobs and growth. Trade means more than just jobs for U.S. workers—it provides families with lower prices and more choices when they shop.

 

 

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U.S. Chamber's Plan to Double U.S. Exports in Five Years

• The recently passed trade agreements with Colombia, Panama, and South Korea will open markets and create American export jobs without adding to the deficit: A U.S. Chamber study determined that failure to enact these trade agreements would have cost more than 380,000 American jobs.
• Clinch additional market-opening accords: Properly negotiated, the Doha Round and the Trans-Pacific Partnership will level the playing field for American workers around the globe. The Asia-Pacific region boasts the fastest growing economies in the world, but it's where the United States is falling behind. The U.S. share of Asia’s international trade has declined by 9% since 1990 as Asian nations have negotiated trading agreements among themselves. Moving on the momentum created by the recently passed trade agreements with Colombia, Panama, and South Korea, we should begin working on new trade deals with emerging economies like Brazil, Egypt, and India.
• Modernize export controls: The Chamber is pushing for lawmakers to consider transatlantic opportunities by working with the EU to eliminate all tariffs on goods traded across the Atlantic. Likewise, the Chamber supports negotiating a liberalization of trade in services through the World Trade Organization.
• Draw more foreign investment and tourism to the United States. Nationwide, tourism is a $700 billion industry that supports 7.4 million American jobs. This can be expanded by bringing more countries into the Visa Waiver program and reducing the barriers that our burdensome visa system imposes on businesses and leisure travel.
• Help small- and medium-sized companies export: The Chamber is partnering with the Export-Import Bank of the United States on its Global Access for Small Business initiative to help more than 5,000 small companies export goods and services produced by U.S. workers.
• Learn more about the Chamber's international trade programs