An Easy Trade Win for Trump

http://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/02/opinion/an-easy-trade-win-for-trump.html

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For years, the conventional wisdom has held that a more seamless flow of people and goods across borders is good for America. But the 2016 presidential campaign put on life support the idea that there is broad national consensus on free trade.

It died last week when President Trump withdrew the United States from the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement and repeated his vow to renegotiate Nafta.

From 2009 until two weeks ago, I led the Export-Import Bank of the United States, a federal agency that for most of its 83-year history has provided export financing for American goods and services, ranging from commercial airplanes and satellites to power turbines and consumer products. Without the bank’s loans, guarantees and insurance, thousands of American businesses would lose deals to foreign competitors.

The Ex-Im Bank is a rare government entity that supports American jobs — 1.4 million over the last eight years — at no cost to taxpayers. The agency is funded entirely by user fees, which generated about $4 billion in profit during my tenure.

But in 2012, a small group of Tea Party leaders in Congress began a crusade against Ex-Im, claiming the agency was perpetuating corporate welfare for big businesses, while ignoring that some 90 percent of Ex-Im transactions directly support small businesses. It put the agency under a cloud of uncertainty that remains to this day.

This offers Mr. Trump an opening to pursue trade policies that can advance the broad bipartisan goals of increasing exports and supporting American jobs. He should announce his full support of Ex-Im and put a stamp on the agency with immediate appointments to Ex-Im’s five open board seats. A functioning board could begin approving the about 40 transactions held up since last year, which are worth about $30 billion and could support almost 200,000 jobs.

There is no need for new legislation or spending. This is low-hanging fruit for a president who ran on a promise to create jobs.

Mr. Trump showed skepticism about Ex-Im on the campaign trail. But so did Barack Obama and Ronald Reagan when they ran for president, and both became supporters of the agency after taking office. Mr. Trump should follow suit.

A strong Ex-Im is just a start. If Mr. Trump is committed to America “winning” in international trade, he needs to confront the destructive idea popular among some Republicans that the United States government doesn’t even need to be at the table when deals are being made.

America’s economic competitors — China chief among them — aren’t debating whether their governments should help domestic companies win business abroad. They are using every tool they can to support jobs at home and outcompete America, including export credit agencies, state-owned enterprises and generous development loans.

To cite just one example, in 2015 alone, the Chinese government provided about $500 billion in loans and insurance to support Chinese exporters. That is about the same amount of financing Ex-Im has provided over its entire eight-decade history.

In this increasingly mercantilist environment, American businesses don’t need lectures from Capitol Hill on the beauty of free markets and the evils of corporate welfare. They need support. Without it, America is unilaterally disarming while the rest of the world is heading into the arena with more weaponry.

Mr. Trump should also rethink the drastic cuts to America’s trade promotion efforts previewed in his team’s first budget blueprint, which includes the elimination of the International Trade Administration and the Overseas Private Investment Corporation. Many American businesses — particularly small ones — depend heavily on the expertise of teams at the Commerce and State Departments and at other federal agencies to get a foothold in emerging markets, connect with customers and suppliers abroad and to navigate complex foreign rules and regulations.

Mr. Trump could also lead more United States trade missions, which historically have chief executives accompanying the commerce secretary on overseas trips to win business and close deals. President-elect Trump wasn’t shy about going to Indiana to convince Carrier to keep jobs in the country. Why not broaden his focus as president to salesman and negotiator-in-chief abroad?

Mr. Trump should also expand the new advisory trade council he announced in December — which appears to be just a small group of presidential confidants — to something akin to a National Security Council for trade; a highly focused group of policy-setting secretaries and agency heads who operate much as a senior management team would in the private sector. They should meet regularly to plan and review progress toward the goal of expanding United States exports and the jobs they support.

By showing the country the clear benefits to American businesses of selling more goods and services abroad, Mr. Trump could turn down the heat on the trade debate. The president’s support for Ex-Im would send a powerful signal that he is willing to fight aggressively for the interests of American exporters and the more than 10 million American workers whose jobs depend on selling to vast pool of consumers who live outside American borders.