Making the Case for Expanding Trade Agreements
March 22, 2010 :: Posted by: Jose Briceno
Last Friday, I had the opportunity to participate in an interesting conversation with Michelle O’Neil, Acting Under Secretary for International Trade, at an event organized by the Northern Virginia Technology Council (NVTC) on Obama’s new trade initiative.
Michelle O’Neil is the kind of person any organization would love to have—full of energy, a quick thinker, a great listener, and always ready to take action. Luckily, she is serving the United States in a vital role at the Commerce Department. As she spoke, she was getting ready to head to Russia to continue the trade talks that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton began with Russian officials during her visit to Moscow early in the week.
At the event, Undersecretary O’Neil outlined not only the key points of President Obama’s National Export Initiative (NEI) but the challenges his Executive Order to double the size of U.S. exports within five years pose for the Secretary of Commerce and other cabinet members.
One of the tasks of the Export Promotion Cabinet is to reestablish the President's Export Council, a presidential advisory committee on international trade led by Jim McNerney, CEO of The Boeing Co., and Ursula Burns, CEO of Xerox Co. The council is expected to report to the President in 180 days with suggested course of actions to achieve the national export initiative’s goal.
The Export Council will also include dozens of other business people, from small and medium-size enterprises to large corporations, who will voice their opinions on how to enhance U.S. exports.
My hope is that small business, a critical engine of the U.S. economy, are well represented in the Export Council. Export assistance and access to information are particularly important to help small businesses identify new opportunities and expand their frontiers.
I mentioned to Undersecretary O’Neil that, based on Bixal’s experience, doing simple things like helping organizations with their multilingual (English-Spanish) web presence, companies can instantly become global corporations.
I also mentioned that many U.S. companies are already exporting to Latin America but don’t even know it. This is because the tracking of online purchases from Latin America oftentimes stops at the U.S. border where a second shipping company is hired by the online buyer to complete the product delivery to its final destination. This process increases transaction costs and makes the process more cumbersome. This would not be the case if there were clear rules and agreements in place to facilitate electronic commerce with other nations, particularly with Latin American countries, a largely underserved market and a close and important destination for U.S. exports.
Mrs. O’Neil acknowledged the issue and highlighted the United States’ efforts in promoting policies and technologies to enhance electronic commerce of goods and services, particularly technology where the U.S. has much to offer. She also explained that part of the efforts of NEI will be oriented towards working closely with the United Postal Services and other shipping companies to increase the number of destinations for U.S. exports beyond Canada and Mexico, the main U.S. trade partners.
I followed-up by saying that Bixal was a good example of a small company exporting technology and services to Latin America. We have recently implemented a system to help the Government of Panama administer its trade agreements with other countries, and particularly, to help Panama implement its trade agreement with the U.S. The Panamanians seem to be ready, but the agreement is still pending approval by the U.S. Congress. She was happy that someone had brought up the issue of engaging in more free trade agreements with other nations, and welcomed the opportunity to explain why approving the pending trade agreements with Colombia, Korea and Panama was a key component of President Obama’s National Export Initiative.
Undersecretary O’Neil asked Fred Aziz, Associate Director, Technology and E-Commerce, U.S. Department of Commerce, to follow-up on this dialogue, with whom I was able to connect through LinkedIn and email a few hours later. Fred was one of at least a half dozen of O’Neil’s staff who were at this exciting NVTC event to answer questions and interact with the attendees, an example of Michelle O’Neil’s commitment to listening, and a great example for other government officials to follow.