Expanding Trade to Create Jobs and Strengthen Our Economy

Advocating America's Interests Abroad

• Opening markets for U.S. exports abroad and creating American jobs through NAFTA, GATT and more than 270 other free and fair trade agreements
• Integrating China into the world economy through landmark trade agreement that opens markets to U.S. exports, slashes Chinese tariffs, and protects American workers from dumping
• Established World Trade Organization to reduce tariffs, settle trade disputes, and enforce rules

[source: National Security Council]

Trade Has Contributed To the Strength of The Economy

• America's successful engagement in the world economy has helped to propel the economy's remarkable record of sustained, non-inflationary growth.
• Export expansion has accounted for more than one-quarter of U.S. economic growth between 1992 and 1998.
• The U.S. has grown nearly twice as fast as all of the other countries in the G7. Real industrial production in the US is up over 34% since 1992, compared to a 4% gain for Germany and a 1% decline for Japan.
• Increased trade has contributed to more than 20 million net new jobs being created since 1993, and a 4.1% unemployment rate that is the lowest in a generation.

[source: National Economic Council]

Trade Has Contributed To Higher American Living Standards

• By expanding exports and maintaining the world's most open major market, America has sustained the world's highest real per capita incomes.
• From 1992 to 1998, export-related jobs paid 15% more on average than non-export-related jobs.
• The average per capita income of 265 million Americans is high even relative to countries like France, Germany, Japan, Canada, and Australia. The World Bank reports that U.S. real per capita income exceeded the average for 650 million people living in other such high-income countries by nearly 40%. Our incomes could be higher still by further opening foreign markets.

[source: National Economic Council]