News Analysis: Obama administration ups trade push as U.S. exports fall short of promise

The Obama administration is stepping up efforts to advance trade deals with Asia and Europe to cement a trade legacy as the administration has fallen short of its goal of doubling U.S. exports over five years.

In his State of the Union address in 2010, U.S. President Barack Obama announced the National Export Initiative with the goal of doubling U.S. exports by the end of 2014, part of the administration's efforts to strengthen the U.S. economy and create jobs.

The latest data released by the Commerce Department showed U.S. exports of goods and services amounted to 2.35 trillion U.S. dollars for full year 2014, increasing by just 49 percent from 1. 58 trillion dollars in 2009. In order to meet the goal of doubling exports from 2009 to 2014, the U.S. would have to export 810 billion dollars more than it did.

Obama administration officials have not publicly acknowledged that the administration failed to achieve the president's target of doubling exports, but instead touted the fact that U.S. exports hit a record high for the fifth straight year in 2014 and became a key driver of U.S. economic recovery.

Gary Hufbauer, a former deputy assistant secretary for international trade of U.S. Treasury, criticized the Obama administration for not seeking more trade agreements that could have open up new markets and boost U.S. exports.

The administration's national export strategy was "all rhetoric " with "very little action," Hufbauer told Xinhua, adding that Obama has only signed new trade agreements with the Republic of Korea, Columbia and Panama over the past five years.

Hufbauer, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute of International Economics, also highlighted the financing from the Export-Import Bank, the official export credit agency of the United States, as well as the strong dollar and weak economies abroad, as the reasons why the administration did not meet its exports goal.

"The U.S. Export-Import Bank needs to be much larger to make a difference. Private banks aren't much interested in financing exports," he said.

As trade has emerged in recent weeks as one of the few areas where Obama and the leaders of the Republican-controlled Congress agree, the Obama administration has made trade policy a top priority and stepped up efforts to push for new trade deals with Asia and Europe.

"We must finish and implement two major trade agreements that would open up new markets to U.S. goods and services: the Trans- Pacific Partnership (TPP) and the Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP)," U.S. Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker last week wrote in an article posted on the Commerce Department's website.

"Once completed, these two agreements will give the United States free trade arrangements with 65 percent of global GDP and give our business a large base of new potential customers."

In a new national security strategy unveiled by the White House several days ago, Obama also stressed the strategic importance of trade agreements to sustain U.S. leadership in the global economy, making a strong case to urge lawmakers to back his trade agenda and cement his trade legacy.

Through the TPP and the TTIP, "we are setting the world's highest standards for labor rights and environmental protection, while removing barriers to U.S. exports and putting the United States at the center of a free trade zone covering two-thirds of the global economy," Obama said in the document outlining his national security priorities for his final years in office.

But to conclude these complex trade agreements, the Obama administration needs to get the trade promotion authority (TPA) from U.S. Congress first. Trade promotion authority, also known as fast-track, empowers the president to negotiate trade deals and then present them to Congress for up-or-down votes, with no amendments allowed.

Dave Reichert, a Republican member of the House Ways and Means Committee that has jurisdiction over taxes and trade, said last week that the House and Senate can't realistically negotiate trade agreement without TPA, as "everyone would want to amend trade agreements."

"If I were negotiating with the United States I would be deathly afraid" of the entire Congress amending trade agreements, he added.

While Republicans and Business groups say they want to give Obama the TPA he needs to close the trade deals, a coalition of Democratic lawmakers and activists from labor unions opposes, arguing that those trade deals have hurt U.S. workers and increased income inequality.

The Obama administration has deployed Cabinet secretaries to lobby Democrats to build support for the TPA legislation in recent weeks. House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Paul Ryan told reporters last week that Congress could pass a TPA measure this spring with Obama's help. Hufbauer also expected Congress to pass the TPA legislation in late April, which would pave the way for the conclusion of TPP trade talks in the summer. Endite