Chamber: Free Trade Pacts Should Top Obama Agenda

(Journal of Commerce Online – Alan Field)

Barack Obama should implement a broad range of measures to expand international trade and help jump-start U.S. economic growth, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce said today.

In its annual State of American Business report, Chamber President and Chief Executive Thomas J. Donohue outlined the group’s new trade agenda:

• Completing the Doha Round of WTO-sponsored trade talks;
• Improving the Trade Adjustment Assistance program to simplify eligibility for displaced workers;
• Doubling federal spending on programs that help small U.S. exporters;
• Ratifying new free-trade agreements, including pending pacts with Colombia, Panama and South Korea;
• Strengthening intellectual property regulation;
• Reaffirming support for the Foreign Investment and National Security Act of 2007;
• Pursuing bilateral investment treaties with China, India, Brazil, and Russia;
• Modernizing U.S. export controls;
• Ending the failed U.S. trade embargo against Cuba.

Read more here.