Clinton Budget Would Prop Up Exports
President Clinton on Saturday outlined a $108-million plan to boost U.S. exports and to buttress U.S. manufacturers against reverberations from economic crises overseas.
He also said his fiscal 2000 budget will propose $40 million in new foreign aid to help developing countries improve labor standards.
“We must ensure that the new global economy works for working people,” the president said in his weekly radio address.
“With millions of American jobs depending on foreign exports, we must help manufacturers find new markets and attract new customers for our goods overseas,” he added.
Clinton recorded the address Friday at United Auto Workers headquarters in Detroit, after a speech to the Economic Club of Detroit announcing that the nation’s economic expansion is now the longest sustained peacetime growth in history.
The president said his plan would spur nearly $2 billion in additional U.S. exports, which would sustain or create 16,000 high-wage manufacturing jobs in the U.S.
The plan will be part of his proposed budget for the fiscal year that begins Oct. 1. Clinton is due to submit his budget to Congress in early February.
The president described a three-pronged approach:
* Boost support for the Import-Export Bank, the federal agency that provides loans and loan guarantees to help U.S. companies sell abroad.
Clinton said the bank, which currently finances 10% of all U.S. exports of capital equipment, can use expanded credit to foster billions of dollars in exports--for such items as U.S.-built airplanes--that might otherwise have been canceled or delayed due to the financial turmoil in Asia. He proposed adding $81 million to the bank’s $815-million budget.
* Add $14 million to the Commerce Department’s efforts to help small U.S. exporters sell their goods in emerging markets such as China, Latin America and Africa.
* Invest $9 million through the Commerce Department to help developing countries establish a legal and regulatory system that would make it easier for U.S. companies to sell there.
The Clinton plan is designed to head off protectionist moves in the GOP-controlled Congress. The administration is coming under increasing fire for a U.S. trade deficit that is running at a record $167 billion annual rate.
