National Export Initiative
As President Obama announced in his State of the Union address, agencies across the federal government are teaming up under the National Export Initiative to create jobs by expanding exports. USTR is partnering with the Commerce Department, the Agriculture Department, the Small Business Administration (SBA), the Export-Import Bank, and others to open up new opportunities for American businesses to grow and create jobs through exports. A White House progress report on the National Export Initiative, issued in July 2010, illustrates how we’ve worked to support growth in U.S. export sales. In coordination with the NEI, the White House released on September 16 the Export Promotion Cabinet report to the President detailing a plan for successfully implementing the President’s goals.
USTR – led by Ambassador Ron Kirk – has a role in the National Export Initiative (NEI) that mirrors our core mission. USTR is negotiating the opening of new and expanding markets around the world, working in the Trans-Pacific Partnership of dynamic economies in the Asia-Pacific, advancing the World Trade Organization’s Doha Round negotiations, and addressing outstanding issues related to our pending Free Trade Agreements with Korea, Colombia, and Panama. We have renewed efforts to remove trade barriers for American exporters and vigorously enforce existing trade agreements. USTR is utilizing all tools at our disposal to ensure that our trading partners play by the rules and get concrete results for America’s farmers, workers, families and firms both small and large. And as a key member of the President’s Export Promotion Cabinet, Ambassador Kirk has been traveling throughout the United States, listening to American businesses and workers’ ideas and concerns.
As Ambassador Kirk has said, “President Obama and I firmly believe that a smart, aggressive [and] progressive trade policy of the United States can be a critical part of our overall economic recovery program.”
President Obama announces the National Export Initiative, a single, comprehensive strategy to mobilize the Federal Government to promote increased American exports, level the playing field for American companies, and create new jobs for American workers at the Export-Import Bank on March 11, 2010.
President Obama announces the creation of the President's Export Council and talks about the progress being made on finding new markets and new opportunities for American products on July 7, 2010.