About the National Export Initiative
Return to the National Export Initiative
During his State of the Union address, the President set a goal of doubling exports by the end of 2014 – an increase that will support two million additional jobs here at home.
In a time when millions of Americans are out of work, boosting our exports is a short-term imperative. Exports support millions of good, high-paying American jobs. Americans have seen the plant across town shut down, jobs go overseas, and communities shrivel.
Other countries haven’t always played by the same set of rules. America hasn’t always enforced our trade rights, or made sure that the benefits of trade are broadly shared. We are taking more steps to compete in the global marketplace. When 95 percent of the world’s customers are outside our borders, failure to compete for those customers is economic malpractice.
The President refuses to sit on the sidelines and let jobs be created elsewhere when America still has the most innovative economy and the most productive workers in the world. And so, for the first time, the United States is launching a single, comprehensive strategy to promote American exports. It’s called the National Export Initiative (NEI); and it’s an ambitious effort to marshal the full resources of the United States government behind American businesses that sell their goods and services abroad.
Through the NEI, we will take steps to open up new markets, double our exports, and level the playing field for American workers. The President signed an Executive Order instructing the federal government to use every available federal resource in support of this effort:
- by creating an Export Promotion Cabinet made up of the Departments of State, Treasury, Commerce, Agriculture, and other federal agencies responsible for exports.
- by re-establishing the President’s Export Council, the principal private sector advisory committee on international trade.
Over the next several years:
- We’ll continue significantly ramping up Export-Import Bank trade financing for businesses, especially small and medium businesses that want to export their goods but just need a boost.
- We’re going to advocate for our workers, businesses and products abroad to make sure everyone knows what we already do – that the American workers are the most productive and dynamic in the world.
- Secretary Clinton is creating a Senior Visitor Business Liaison in every one of our embassies to proactively look for export opportunities and provide advice to American companies.
- We’ll help US companies identify and gain footholds in new and emerging markets overseas by setting up one-stop-shops that provide a comprehensive toolkit of services – from financing to counseling to promotion – to help potential exporters grow and expand.
- Through employing new technologies and pursuing public-private partnerships, exporters can draw from the global shipping knowledge and resources of companies like FedEx, UPS and the US Postal Service.
- We’ll enforce our current trade agreements and strengthen our existing relationships.
- We’ll increase the government’s attention on removing barriers that are hampering US companies, because if we’re providing free and fair access to foreign markets, then we expect it in return.
Return to the National Export Initiative
