President Obama on Thursday ordered an all-out effort by the U.S. government to increase exports to create more jobs amid record-high unemployment.
"This morning, I signed an executive order instructing the federal government to use every available federal resource in support of that mission," the president told the roughly 1,200 people attending the Export-Import Bank's annual conference in Washington.
As part of the president's initiative, he also has created the Export Promotion Cabinet, which will include officials from the departments of Agriculture, Commerce, Labor and State to execute his plan to double U.S. exports in five years.
Mr. Obama said the officials, including the president of the Export-Import Bank, will focus on such issues as getting financial support for export-related businesses and cracking down on countries that fail to comply with trade agreements.
The president originally announced the five-year plan during his State of the Union speech in January and restated Thursday the initiative will support 2 million U.S. jobs.
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Achieving that goal will be difficult of several reasons. More exports could result in job losses because the United States will have to rely more on imported raw materials. In addition, Democrats and their union supporters oppose reopening trade negotiations with Colombia, Panama and South Korea.
Democrats also oppose free-trade deals, in part because of South Korea's imposition of restrictions on U.S. imports and the attacks on Colombian labor leaders.
The export of U.S. goods and services nearly doubled in the 1990s and nearly doubled again in 2009 -- from roughly $1 trillion in 2003 to more than $1.8 trillion in 2008, said Mr. Obama, citing Census Bureau Foreign Trade Division figures.
He also said 95 percent of the world's customers and the world's fastest-growing markets are outside U.S. borders.
