U.S. pledges to aid exporters

We’re finding out a little more about how the Obama administration plans to double U.S. exports, as the president pledged in his state of the union message. The president said he was establishing a National Export Initiative but until today there haven’t been any details on what that was.

Locke

In a prepared remarks today for a speech at the National Press Club, Commerce Secretary Gary Locke said essentially that Cabinet agencies would work more diligently and more closely together to promote exports:

“Prior to the NEI, export promotion may have been a “some of the time” focus for many U.S. cabinet agencies and departments.  The NEI makes it an “all the time focus.

“Within 180 days, all of the agencies in the Export Cabinet will be responsible for submitting a coordinated, detailed plan to the president about how they will collectively enhance United States exports.”

Locke offered little new as far as agricultural exports specifically. He noted that the president’s budget proposes an additional $54 million for export promotion. The department wants to hire more staff overseas to talk up U.S. products.

At the same time, however, the budget would slash the Market Access Program that subsidizes private promotional programs. The program is especially popular with fruit and vegetable producers and has subsidized marketing campaigns for everything from asparagus to wine. (The Wine Institute is getting $7 million this year.) The White House budget office questions whether the program is really effective, but Congress rejected Obama’s attempt to cut the program last year.

By the way, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack emphasized earlier this week at a budget briefing with reporters that the president was not promising to double agricultural exports, which totaled nearly $97 billion last year.