The AFL-CIO and U.S. Business and Industry Council
Present

On July 12, 2006, the U.S. Business and Industry Council co-hosted a national Trade Crisis Summit with the AFL-CIO at the National Press Club in Washington, DC. The conference, intended to draw attention to the rapidly deteriorating U.S. international trade position, drew a diverse audience of media, economists, think tank experts, Congressional staffers, and businessmen. The conference was broadcast to a national audience by C-SPAN.

Featured speakers included Doug Bartlett, USBIC Director and owner of Bartlett Manufacturing; Rich Trumka of the AFL-CIO; Tom Bius, President, National Farmers Union; Robert Blecker, Professor of Economics, American University; Jodie Allen, Pew Research Center; political commentator William Greider; author David Sirota; pollster Celinda Lake; and Congressman Sherrod Brown (D-OH). Two panel discussions focused on America's massive and unsustainable trade deficit, and on possible trade policy solutions.

USBIC President Kevin Kearns delivered a keynote address citing the need for a trade-balancing, temporary import surcharge on all goods entering the U.S. Such a surcharge, which would exempt critical items such as oil, would be permissible under Article XII of the WTO Charter, and would be imposed until the U.S. trade deficit falls to 1% of GDP or lower. (It is now well over 6 % of GDP.) As Kearns explained, "This is strong and controversial medicine, but urgently needed in the face of our $800 billion -- and rapidly climbing -- current account deficit, which many leading economists now view as unsustainable."

The conference was an important step in getting policymakers in Congress and the Executive to focus on the persistent and growing trade crisis and in getting grassroots Americans and the media educated to the many dangers posed by the deficit.