WASHINGTON — President Obama provided a blueprint Thursday for the administration’s strategy to grow U.S. exports to help drive job creation and economic recovery.
The initiatives were outlined on the same day a Commerce Department report showed U.S. imports of textiles and apparel rose in January. The export push will include greater access to trade financing — including another $2 billion annually to help small and medium-size businesses — and a new Export Promotion Cabinet to coordinate the government’s efforts.
“We’re going to increase financing, advocacy and assistance for American businesses to locate, set up shop and win new markets,” Obama said in a speech to the Export-Import Bank’s annual conference.
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As part of the plan, more than 40 trade missions intended to promote U.S.-made products have been scheduled for this year — the first went to India this week. There will be more money for promoting exports and Obama said federal agencies would establish public-private partnerships with companies to tap into their expertise about overseas markets and aid firms looking to expand.
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Obama said the administration also will focus on enforcement of existing trade agreements to give companies a level playing field, and will seek to open more markets through new and pending trade pacts.
The President reiterated his call for China to move to a market-oriented exchange rate to help correct global trading imbalances.
The National Export Initiative, announced in the State of the Union address, will “substantially increase” companies’ access to trade financing through the Export-Import Bank, Obama said.
The Export Promotion Cabinet, which was created in an executive order Obama signed Thursday, includes the U.S. Trade Representative, the Small Business Administrator, the president of the Export-Import Bank and the Secretaries of State, Treasury, Agriculture, Labor and Commerce. The administration also relaunched the President’s Export Council, an advisory committee.
Obama’s pledge to double U.S. exports in the next five years has been met with skepticism, as global consumer demand struggles to recover from the recession. The same fallout affected U.S. consumption, and drove a decline in apparel and textile imports in 2009.
But the Commerce Department’s Office of Textiles & Apparel’s monthly trade report said apparel and textile imports to the U.S. rose 5.9 percent to 3.99 billion square meter equivalents in January compared with a year earlier. Textile and apparel shipments from China increased 16.6 percent to 1.86 billion SME, driven primarily by apparel volume, which jumped 23.2 percent to 729 million SME from a year ago. Textile shipments increased 12.7 percent 1.13 billion SME.
Textile and apparel imports from Vietnam were up 16 percent to 213 million SME in January, with textile shipments spiking 46.9 percent to 61 million SME and apparel shipments rising 7 percent to 152 million SME.
Combined shipments of textiles and apparel from Canada rose 18.7 percent to 111 million SME, while imports from Mexico increased 11.8 percent to 182 million SME.
Bangladesh saw shipments fall 21 percent to 119 million SME and South Korea’s imports dropped 12.8 percent to 105 million SME.
The overall U.S. trade deficit shrank to $37.3 billion in January from $39.9 billion in December.
“The pace of trade growth is bound to slow this year, but it will still be a key driver of the global recovery,” said Nigel Gault, chief U.S. economist at IHS Global Insight.