Trade agreements have been a major contributor to improving U.S. competitiveness and economic growth in our global economy and also are important to promoting economic recovery for U.S. workers and businesses. Trade agreements open up our countries’ markets to our goods and services and provide a stable and fair legal environment for U.S. interests, thus helping the U.S. economy.
Intel recently signed onto a letter sent to President Obama supporting the Administration’s negotiation of a comprehensive and meaningful free trade agreement with the Trans-Pacific countries of Australia, Brunei Darussalam, Chile, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, and Vietnam. This agreement is formally known as the Trans-Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership and more commonly known as TPP. Intel believes that the TPP could open up new markets for U.S. businesses in the important Asia-Pacific corridor. Instead of sitting on the side as many Asian countries work on their own trade agreements, the U.S. should be a part of this important new trade liberalization effort. The TPP also presents an important opportunity to strengthen ties with these countries, which could help the U.S. as it seeks to advance other priorities not included in the TPP.
The economic benefits of a TPP agreement could be enormous for the U.S. Together, the countries involved in the TPP represent the U.S.’s sixth-largest trading partner, with a two-way goods trade in 2008 of almost $132 billion ($75 billion of U.S. goods exports and over $56 billion of goods imports). In 2007, U.S. direct investment in the TPP countries was over $186 billion, while TPP country investment in the U.S. was over $16 billion. With the strong potential to expand the ultimate TPP agreement to other countries in the Trans-Pacific corridor, the economic benefit of this agreement could be even greater.
