President Barack Obama unveiled a series of U.S. government actions, including export regulatory reform, designed to make exporting easier and to boost the position of U.S. exporters in overseas markets in remarks before the Export Import Bank annual conference in Washington on March 11. Obama promised a broad proposal for reform of the export control system within a few weeks and announced two measures he is putting on the table immediately. "First, we're going to streamline the process certain companies need to go through to get their products to market," the President said, "products with encryption capabilities like cell phone and network storage devices."
Those products currently endure a technical review by the Defense Department that can take between 30 and 60 days. Obama announced a new online process that will shorten that review to 30 minutes.
"Second, we're going to eliminate unnecessary obstacles for exporting products to companies with dual-national and third-country-national employees," Obama said. "Currently, our exporters and foreign consumers of these goods have to comply with two different, conflicting set of standards. So we're moving towards harmonizing those standards and making it easier for American and foreign companies to comply with our requirements without diminishing our security." These and other proposals outlined by Obama flesh out the National Export Initiative the President inaugurated in his State of the Union Address in January with the goal of doubling U.S. exports within the next five years.
The President announced that he had signed an executive order creating an export promotion cabinet, made up of the Secretaries of State, Treasury, Agriculture, Commerce, and Labor, the U.S. Trade Representative, the Small Business Administrator, and the Export-Import Bank President. Obama also re-launched the President's Export Council as his principal national advisory committee on international trade and names James McNerney, CEO of The Boeing Company, as its chair, and Ursula Burns, CEO of Xerox Corp. as its vice chair.
Among other elements of the National Export Initiative: increased trade financing, including a new $2 billion per year to increase support for small and medium-sized businesses; 40 trade and reverse trade missions scheduled for this year; and an effort to set up one-stop shops to help exporters across the country and in 250 embassies and consulates abroad, bringing together Ex-Im Bank, the SBA, the Departments of Commerce and Agriculture, and the Trade Development Agency.
Obama also promised tougher enforcement of existing free trade agreements and alluded cryptically to FTAs currently pending before Congress when he promised "to strengthen relations with key partners, specifically South Korea, Panama, Colombia, with the goal of moving forward with existing agreements in a way that upholds our values."
The President admitted that the federal government hasn't done a good enough job in the past advocating for exporters abroad. "That's why," he said, "the United States of America will go to bat for our businesses and our workers. This is an effort I will personally lead as President."
