Those were among the key developments in the annual “State of American Business” speech in which Chamber President Thomas Donahue outlined the business federation’s 2011 policy goals, many of which follow familiar themes of restraining regulatory activity, expanding U.S. trade, rebuilding physical and intellectual infrastructure and reducing the national debt.
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Last month, the chamber held a forum on global supply chain competitiveness in which participants discussed ways to remove direct and indirect international hurdles to trade.
The U.S. Postal Service is essentially a quasi-governmental logistics enterprise that is responsible for delivering mail and parcels, both domestic and international, to millions of people each day. Potter is credited with improving delivery performance and containing red ink, including reducing the workforce by 200,000, as the organization’s costs increased while revenues decreased as more people share documents over the Internet.
On the trade front, Donahue reiterated calls for the administration and Congress to ratify the South Korea free trade agreement, as well as market-opening pacts with Panama and Colombia.
Quick approval of the U.S.-South Korea trade agreement is critical because thousands of jobs are at stake, especially at a time of high unemployment and to counter the proliferation of trade deals between other countries that potentially take business away from U.S. exporters, he said.
Reducing tariffs to zero in the $600 billion transatlantic market would serve as a major economic stimulus to both the U.S. and European Union economies, motivate other countries to move forward with a global trade agreement, and set the stage for similar agreements with other partners, Donahue said.
An independent study commissioned by the chamber and done in Europe found that eliminating tariffs between the United States and EU would increase transatlantic trade by more than $100 billion through 2015. Chamber officials have had preliminary discussions with European business and political leaders and plan to raise the issue with U.S. government officials in the coming weeks.
Donahue, a former head of the American Trucking Associations, applauded the U.S. Department of Transportation’s initial framework for reopening the southern border to Mexican trucks as required under the North American Free Trade Agreement. Mexican retaliatory tariffs for ending a pilot program in 2009 that allowed some Mexican long-haul carriers beyond a narrow economic zone has cost 25,000 American jobs, according to the chamber.
The DOT plan attempts to address safety concerns by limiting the initial enrollment of eligible Mexican carriers and requiring them to pass two rounds of inspections and other reviews before receiving full operating authority.
Last week, Donahue said retaining access to the Mexican market is critical if the United States plans to meet its goal of doubling exports within five years.
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The United States is falling behind economically in part because the government has neglected transportation infrastructure, Donahue said. He urged passage of long-term surface transportation, aviation and water resource spending plans, which have lapsed in Congress, to provide the necessary investment.
Finding a new revenue source to fund the highway trust fund would unlock about $200 billion in private sector investment for transportation infrastructure that could be part of public-private partnerships, Donahue said. Lawmakers have been at odds over how to fund the massive transportation bill.
Politicians, who have been reluctant to raise fuel taxes and are in a deficit-cutting mood, may take a second look at infrastructure investment if the unemployment rate continues to remain high even as the overall economy improves, he said.
“Maybe God is going to pay for all the infrastructure,” Bruce Josten, the chamber’s executive vice president for government affairs, joked during the press conference. ‘ Eric Kulisch
