Global Trade Means Jobs - Let's Celebrate

by Gary Toebben

On May 3, the Chamber will celebrate the 90th annual World Trade Week Kickoff Breakfast. This event, attended by 600 community and international leaders, ignites a month of activities highlighting the importance of global trade to families and businesses in Southern California. This year’s breakfast will feature Alan F. Horn, chairman of The Walt Disney Studios, as well as special appearances by Congressman Ed Royce, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti. The breakfast will include the presentation of the prestigious Stanley T. Olafson Award for promotion of international trade to Ilse Metchek, president of the California Fashion Association and Fred Latuperissa, director of the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Southern California Inland Empire office.

This focus on international trade could not come at a more pivotal time. Last week, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry was in Los Angeles to tout the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), which was negotiated between the United States and 11 other countries over the last five years. The agreement was finalized in October and signed in February in Auckland, but it does not become effective until ratified by the U.S. Congress.

The final TPP agreement represents bold American leadership at the negotiating table as our representatives crafted the most transformative trade agreement ever written. It includes labor and environmental standards that American businesses already adhere to, but which set a new unprecedented higher standard for many of the nations at the table.

For Southern California, a region whose economy and jobs are heavily dependent on global trade, the benefits of the TPP are enormous. The agreement will lift incomes for Americans by more than $130 billion per year by 2030. It will eliminate more than18,000 foreign taxes on Made in America products, such as cotton, beef and almonds. American workers, factories, farmers, and service providers all stand to benefit. As Secretary Kerry noted last week, the TPP will "reduce bureaucracy for our small businesses and family farms. It will help our companies participate more directly in new global supply chains that are creating unprecedented opportunities all around the world."

If Congress fails to ratify the TPP, it will not save American jobs, in fact, the results will be just the opposite. If America declines to negotiate on the global stage, other countries will step in to dictate the terms and fill the void. As Secretary Kerry said in his closing comment, "You can't build a wall against knowledge, particularly in a world where everybody has that knowledge at their fingertips every day."

Our ACCESS Washington, D.C. delegation of more than 150 leaders will be in Washington, D.C. one week from today advocating for the TPP and the sale of American made products. In the meantime, I invite you to join us on May 3 as we celebrate the benefits that global trade has brought to our families, our economy and our quality of life.

And that's The Business Perspective.