Today, in his weekly radio address, President Obama spoke about his first presidential trip to Asia, and the importance of the region to our economic prosperity and job creation here at home. From a trade perspective, Asia is home to the fastest growing economies in the world and we now buy more goods from and do more trade with the region than any other place in the world. Listen to the President's radio address here.
President Obama said that increasing America's exports to Asia will play a role in sustaining and creating new jobs for the American people. For example, if we can increase our exports to Asia Pacific nations by just 5%, we can increase the number of American jobs supported by these exports by hundreds of thousands.
An example of how trade helps to sustain and create new jobs is a small business, Turf Merchants, located in Tangent, Oregon. Turf Merchants employs 14 people and their company develops, produces, and markets grass seeds. Today, the products made by Turf Merchants are shipped to more than 20 countries around the world, including China. And the Oregonians hard at work at Turf Merchants owe their jobs and their paychecks, at least in part, to trade.
Small businesses like Turf Merchants are major employers in many communities, and we know that they are economic drivers. In almost every community in America, big or small, rural or urban, a homegrown company is supporting jobs and families by engaging in international commerce.
That is one of the many reasons why the President's trip to Asia was so important. The Administration has taken concrete steps to further open the world's markets to American exporters to sustain and create new jobs as well as to unleash additional prosperity for our ranchers, farmers, service providers and small business women and men. These include President Obama's announcement that the United States will engage with the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and his pledge that the United States will remain an active partner with the 21 member economies of the Asia-Pacific Economic Corporation (APEC). The agreements secured by China at the recent 2009 U.S.-China Joint Commission on Commerce and Trade (JCCT) -- to improve market access for American energy companies, reopen its market to U.S. pork, and clamp down on internet piracy - strengthen the foundation we have established to ensure a robust, rules-based trading relationship with the world's fastest growing economies.
From a trade perspective, the steps the Administration has recently taken in Asia will benefit businesses and workers across the American economy - ranchers, farmers, manufacturers, and creative industries all have a future in U.S. trade with Asia.
