| Trade Agreements are Working for Workers! | Congress should approve the agreements
with Peru, Colombia, and Panama
Trade sustains millions of good jobs around the world. U.S. exports directly support more than 12 million jobs, and these jobs typically pay 13% to 18% more than the average U.S. wage. The benefits are plain to see across the economy:
- One in every three acres of farmland in the U.S. is planted for export, according to USDA.
- One in every five manufacturing jobs is tied to overseas sales, according to the U.S. Department of Commerce.
- U.S. service providers brought in export revenues of more than $400 billion in 2006, according to the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis.
The same is true overseas. Consider the success of the U.S.-Chile Free Trade Agreement, which was implemented in January 2004 and immediately began to pay dividends. Since 2004, U.S.-Chile trade has surged by two-and-a-half fold in just three years!
The benefits for Chilean workers have been remarkable:
- Chile's per capita income was 83% higher in 2006 than in 2003, the year before the free trade agreement with the United States took force, according to the IMF.
- Chile's unemployment rate has fallen from 8.1% in 2003 to 6.6% in 2006, according to the National Institute of Statistics. Unemployment had fallen to 6% by the end of 2006.
Other factors such as the soaring price of copper--Chile's leading export--have played a role in these income gains, but booming trade is a key part of Chile's success by all accounts.
Make no mistake--trade is good for workers!
|
|  | |  | | Did you know?
| | | Exports to the United States support approximately two million jobs in Peru, Colombia, and Panama, according to local government statistics.
| |  | |  |
| | | | Overheard
| | | ''The combined Colombia/Peru market is a larger export market for Caterpillar than Brazil, the United Kingdom, Japan or even Germany.''
-Bill Lane, Caterpillar
| | | | |
| |
