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BRT's Engler: Every State Stands to Benefit from Trans-Pacific Partnership

Oct 5, 2015
Business Roundtable President John Engler was the keynote speaker last Wednesday, Sept. 30, at the Fourth Annual Trade and International Affairs Symposium sponsored by the Congressional Hispanic Leadership Institute. Engler emphasized the importance of policies such as modernizing U.S. taxes and fixing America's broken immigration system, highlighting the potential of the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Excerpts: 
 
With a combined population of 486 million and generating roughly 15 percent of global trade, the other 11 TPP countries – including Chile, Mexico, and Peru – are critical markets for U.S. goods and services exports.  
 
Every U.S. state stands to benefit from increasing U.S. commercial engagement with these countries. 
 
Negotiators have set some serious goals for the TPP: meaningful market access for U.S. goods and services; protection of intellectual property, investment protections including investor-state dispute settlement, and government procurement.  
 
TPP is also expected to establish disciplines in such newer areas as fair competition with state-owned enterprises, the protection of cross-border data flows, and promotion of regulatory cooperation. 
 
These provisions protecting IP and data flows are critical, too. Investment is global, data is global.   Information is moving freely. IP can be created anywhere – Palo Alto, Peru or Patagonia. 
Ultimately, the goal is to see the creation of ever-larger free trade areas. Including additional Asia-Pacific countries could create a region representing more than half of global output and more than 40 percent of world trade.
 
Adding South and Central American countries as promising partners in expanding trade and investment and establishing stronger rules could result in other countries experiencing the kind of growth we’ve seen in Peru and Colombia.
 
Now, critics often say the benefits of trade are purely theoretical, while the harm is obvious.
 
I say the benefits are proven. Since the U.S.-Peru FTA went into effect in 2009, the export of U.S. goods have climbed 63 percent.
 
And U.S. exports to Colombia have jumped 42 percent since the U.S.-Colombia FTA entered into force in May 2012!
 
I think it’s clear that removing trade barriers, expanding two-way trade, accelerating foreign direct investment in the United States all represent opportunities for Americans, and certainly Hispanic Americans.
 
Listen to these numbers: Some 2.4 million Florida jobs are related to trade. Texas? Three million jobs. California? 4.7 million!
 
The data indicates that many of these jobs are in small- and minority-owned businesses.  
 
Business Roundtable released a statement today upon the successful conclusion of the TPP negotiations in Atlanta. 
 

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