The US Wants To Increase Exports By 50% – Will It Work?

The article titled “Business groups praise export plan, but want more” explains President Obama’s plans to increase trade promotion efforts and provide more loans to small exporters.

The plans are to increase the budget for the Department of Commerce’s International Trade Association (ITA) in order to help US exporters enter markets like China, India, and Brazil.  The ITA hopes to help 23,000 businesses to start exporting or to grow international sales.  Another goal is to increase the number of small and medium sized businesses that export to more than one market by 50%.

This initiative can definitely help many small to medium sized businesses looking to expand into new markets, and it will help the US to become more competitive internationally.  As Commerce Secretary Gary Locke said, “This initiative will correct an economic blind spot that has allowed other countries to chip away at America’s international competitiveness.”

As the title of the article states, more needs to be done in order to double the exports in 5 years.  Major policy changes – like the ratification of pending trade agreements, modernizing the export controls system, and even adjusting tax policies to make us based companies more competitive – need to happen.  There will need to be a concerted effort among various agencies to ensure that this plan reaches its goals.

One more thing that may be necessary is actually getting businesses to think of exporting as an option.  In our experiences, many US businesses – especially small to medium sized businesses – are extremely reluctant to expand internationally.  This could be because the companies do not think they have the resources to expand, the time to understand and complete the various steps, or the market intelligence to understand their market and expand successfully.  Whatever it is that keeps small to medium sized businesses from exporting, the ITA needs to understand it.  The means to help businesses expand globally are coming into place.  Will companies take advantage of it?

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