A new report released by Public Citizen questions President Obama’s logic in his State of the Union Address that Free Trade Agreements boost exports. “Lies, Damn Lies, and Export Statistics: How Corporate Lobbyists Distort the Record of Flawed Trade Deals,” released a day before the first meeting of the President’s Export Council, ‘ reveals that the growth of U.S exports to countries with which the United States does not have Free Trade Agreements (FTA) has outpaced the growth of exports to the 17 U.S. FTA partners.’
The report analyzes government trade data to reveal that FTAs have actually imposed an export “penalty,” including in the service sector. The report also exposes the inconsistent methodology underlying reports by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of Manufacturers to show how the corporate lobby has produced data to support their demand for more FTAs.
The findings include:
- Between 1998 and 2009, U.S. goods exports to FTA partner countries grew by an annual average rate of only 0.8 percent while goods exports to non-FTA partner countries grew by an average of 2.2 percent
- In 2009, exports to FTA countries shrank 21.1 percent, while exports to non-FTA countries shrank 18.4 percent.
- As of 2009, the United States had a $54 billion trade deficit in goods, excluding oil, with its 17 FTA partners.
The report underscores the fact that ‘the president cannot achieve net U.S. job creation through export growth by establishing more FTAs that increase imports more than exports.
View the complete report: https://www.citizen.org/Page.aspx?pid=4398.
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