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Weekly Address: President Obama – We Should Make Sure the Future is Written by Us

The President’s Weekly Address post is also an Open News Thread. Feel free to share other news stories in the comments.

 

From the White HouseWeekly Address

In this week’s address, the President underscored the importance of continuing to grow our economy and support good-paying jobs for our workers by opening up new markets for American goods and services.

While America’s businesses, ranchers, and farmers are already exporting goods at record levels, there’s more room for growth with 95 percent of the world’s customers living outside our borders. In order to pursue new trade agreements, the President called on Congress to pass trade promotion authority so that the U.S. — not China — can play a leading role in negotiating 21st century trade deals that protect our workers, support good wages, and help grow the middle class.

Transcript: Weekly Address: We Should Make Sure the Future Is Written by Us

Hi, everybody.  At a moment when our businesses are creating jobs at the fastest pace since the 1990s, we’ve still got to do everything we can to help workers and businesses succeed in the new economy – one that’s competitive, connected, and changing every day.

One thing we know for certain about businesses in the 21st century is that they’ll need to sell more goods and services Made in America to the rest of the world.

Now, our businesses already sell goods and services in other countries at record levels.  Our farmers, our factory workers, and our small businesses are exporting more than ever before – and exporters tend to pay their workers higher wages.

More small businesses are using the internet to grow their business by reaching new customers they couldn’t reach before, too.  As an example, nine in ten American small businesses that use eBay as a platform to sell their products are exporters – with customers in more than 30 different countries on average.

But there’s a lot of room for growth.  After all, 95% of the world’s potential customers live outside our borders.  Many of them live in the Asia-Pacific – the world’s fastest-growing region.  And as we speak, China is trying to write the rules for trade in the 21st century.

That would put our workers and our businesses at a massive disadvantage.  We can’t let that happen.  We should write those rules.

That’s why Congress should act on something called “trade promotion authority.” This is bipartisan legislation that would protect American workers, and promote American businesses, with strong new trade deals from Asia to Europe that aren’t just free, but are fair.  It would level the playing field for American workers.  It would hold all countries to the same high labor and environmental standards to which we hold ourselves.

Now, I’m the first to admit that past trade deals haven’t always lived up to the hype.  And that’s why we’ve successfully gone after countries that break the rules at our workers’ expense.  But that doesn’t mean we should close ourselves off from new opportunities, and sit on the sidelines while other countries write our future for us.  We should seize those opportunities.  We should make sure the future is written by us.  And if we do, we won’t just keep creating good new jobs for decades to come – we’ll make sure that this century is another all-American century.

Thanks, and have a great weekend.

Bolding added.

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1 comment

  1. Transcript: Remarks by the President at DNC Winter Meeting

    On the recovering economy:

    Now, sometimes, because the news cycle is so quick, we forget how all this came about and the debates that we had last year, or two years, or four years, or six years ago.  I just want everybody to remember that at every step as we made policies, as we made this progress, we were told by our good friends, the Republicans, that our actions would crush jobs, and explode deficits, and destroy the country. I mean, I want everybody to do a fact-check — (laughter) — and go back to 2009, 2010, ’11, ’12, ’13 — just go back and look at the statements that were made each year by these folks about all these policies.  Because apparently they don’t remember. (Laughter.) […]

    And now that their grand predictions of doom and gloom, and death panels and Armageddon haven’t come true — (laughter) — the sky hasn’t fallen, Chicken Little is quiet — (laughter) — the new plan, apparently, of congressional Republicans — and this is progress — the new plan is to rebrand themselves as the party of the middle class.  I’m not making this up. (Laughter.)

    Our Republican Leader in the Senate, as he was coming in, after having tried to block every single thing that we have done to strengthen the economy, starts looking at the job numbers and says, you know, it’s getting better because we just got elected  — (laughter) — and people are feeling more optimistic.  Which  —  (laughter) — okay.  I didn’t know that’s how the economy worked.  But maybe?  (Laughter.)  We’ll call some economists. […]

    So, look, I think the shift in rhetoric that they’re engaging in is good if it actually leads them to take different actions.  If it doesn’t, then it’s just spin.  If it doesn’t, if you’re just trying to repackage the same top-down economics and use the words “middle class” attached to it, if you’re just going to keep on cutting taxes at the top and not raise minimum wages for folks who are struggling, then it’s just spin.  You’re trying to bamboozle folks.

    On being a Democrat:

    So we don’t just talk the talk, we’re walking the walk every day.  I’m telling you, Democrats, we should never worry about fighting for these issues, because they are not only right, the American people stand right beside us on most of those issues. Sometimes that gets lost with all the money that’s being spent by outside forces and the distortions and confusion.  But when you actually look at do Americans agree with our policies, do they think these policies would help them — and when there’s a fair presentation of the policies the other side is offering, the American people are with us every time. […]

    We’ve got to be the party that believes nobody should be treated like a second-class person regardless of what you look like or where you come from or who you love.  (Applause.)  We’ve got to be the party that doesn’t just recognize the threat of climate change but actually does something about it for the sake of our kids.  (Applause.)  We’re the party that’s willing to make tough decisions.

    We’ve got to be the party that practices a better kind of politics, not just in Washington but in every community in America, and that appeals to the basic decency of the American people; that sees our differences as a source of strength; that give young people a sense of purpose and possibility, and asks them to participate in our great democracy; that appeals not to fear, but to hope.  (Applause.)

    Because this is not just about us in this room.  This is not just a sports contest.  This is not just about who’s up and down at any given point.  It’s not about notches on a belt.  It’s not about ideological battles, or proving how smart you are.  It’s not about the back-and-forth of politics.  It’s about doing things that make people’s lives better. It’s about doing things that make us confident that America will continue on this upward trajectory that began so many years ago.  It’s about making this nation we love more perfect.  (Applause.)

    It is NOT a sports contest. It is people’s lives.

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