Global Engagement
How Americans Can Win and Prosper In the Worldwide Economy
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Dear Reader: It is time to replace fear with the facts about our nation's role in the worldwide economy and the benefits Americans derive from global engagement. That is the purpose of this report.America has the most open economy and society in the world. Many citizens are now questioning this openness, wondering whether the unfettered flow of goods, capital, and people helps or hurts the average family. The facts will show that while some are hurt and should be helped, the overwhelming majority of Americans derive great benefits from global engagement. |
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Total trade is now equivalent to 27% of the nation's gross domestic product. Our exports alone directly support 12 million good-paying jobs and indirectly support millions of additional jobs. Ninety-seven percent of America's exporters are small businesses, not large, multinational corporations.
Imports help Americans too. They keep inflation low and expand consumer choice and quality. Recent tariff reductions have increased the typical family's purchasing power by $1,300 to $2,000 per year.
Foreign investors want to bring their money here because we have an economy that is second to none among major countries. Our markets are safe and profitable. Foreign companies directly employ 5.1 million Americans and millions more indirectly. Global capital helps finance our deficit and contributes to affordable interest rates and home mortgages.
U.S. investment overseas benefits Americans as well. While making 70% of their investments here in the United States, American businesses also invest abroad, and overseas affiliates of U.S. companies racked up $3.3 trillion in sales last year. Above and beyond exports, these sales generate earnings and profits, boosting stock prices, business expansion, and job creation back home.
The benefits of global engagement extend far beyond the exchange of trade and capital.
Immigrants now supply from 12% to 22% of our workforce in highly skilled occupations like medicine, engineering, the physical sciences, and computers and mathematics. Foreign-born workers also hold a quarter of the jobs in construction, a third in building cleaning and maintenance, and 44% in agriculture. With unemployment at just 4.8%, serious labor shortages in some communities and sectors, and 77 million baby boomers preparing to retire, it is clear that we need these workers—now and in the future.
Global sourcing is another way to secure needed workers. It allows our companies to focus on their core businesses, investing more in research, expansion, and job creation in the United States. Even so, we still insource more than $50 billion more than we outsource.
Our engagement with the world also enables us to win the global race for talent and tourists. Fifty million legal visitors enter our country each year, spending an estimated $100 billion in our critical travel and tourism sector. More than 500,000 foreign students and the world's leading researchers, scientists, and professors attend or are employed by our universities.
Global engagement has also improved the state of the world, promoting peaceful exchange and lifting hundreds of millions of people out of poverty through more open markets and trade-generated growth.
Yet despite these facts, global engagement is under attack. It is important to understand why, to respond to such attacks, and to enact the positive reforms Americans need to win and prosper in the worldwide economy. Without question, the competitive environment facing our workers and businesses is challenging. Many nations have followed our lead in reforming their economies, opening their markets, and investing in training and technology. Now they are competing with us for customers, capital, resources, and jobs—not only around the world but right here in our country.
In the face of this tough competition, we have a choice.
We can blame the competitors and attribute our own problems to the faults of others. We can retreat from the world and close our markets and borders in an effort to shield our workers and industries. Or we can remake ourselves and provide our people and businesses with the skills and tools they need to succeed. We can heed the lessons of history which suggest that no nation has ever remained prosperous by walling itself off. We can do a better job ensuring that the opportunities of global commerce are extended to all.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is dedicated to ensuring that Americans make the right choice. It is neither an accident nor a coincidence that the world's most open economy is also the world's most successful and envied economy. We at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce invite you to consider the facts, reflect on what's at stake, and join us in a vigorous effort to knock down market barriers abroad, stay engaged in the world, and remove the impediments that make it harder for Americans to compete.
The path to success lies in openness and engagement, not in retreat and isolationism.
Thomas J. Donohue
President and CEO
U.S. Chamber of Commerce
Washington, DC
August 2006