US trade policy impact on business.

• Author: Barlas Stephen
• Position: Trade policy.

The U.S. Export-Import Bank is on fire. Not its headquarters in downtown Washington, D.C. but the bank's financing of United States exports that has helped turn up the flame under U.S. exports during the first half of 2011. In its latest triumph, the Ex-lm Bank guaranteed loans in September for Canadian firms building solar-energy plants in Ontario. The guarantees of loans of $226 million and $219 million will allow Canadian developers to purchase engineering services and thin-film cadmium telluride solar-PV modules from First Solar of Perrysburg, Ohio, and power inverters from Xantrex Technology USA, in Elkhart, Ind.

That financing and the exports the bank is supplying will help to maintain an estimated 550 jobs at First Solar's manufacturing facility in Perrysburg. With job creation the number one U.S. political and economic imperative, the Ex-lm Bank has been doing what it can to keep U.S. employment numbersfrom cooling further. But as the Obama administration and the Federal Reserve exhaust their stimulative bag of tricks, more aggressive trade policies - including expanding the bank's authority - may be needed to save the drama around preserving American jobs from becoming a more prolonged tragedy.

"We need an activist trade policy to create good American jobs," says Myron Brilliant, senior vice president, International, for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. He adds that President Obama has done some good things, such as enforcing trade agreements and moving toward modernizing and updating an outdated export control regime. "We need an activist trade policy to create good American jobs," says Myron Brilliant, senior vice president, International, for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. He adds that President Obama has done some good things, such as enforcing trade agreements and moving toward modernizing and updating an outdated export control regime.

"But in some ways he has fallen way short," Brilliant adds. "The administration must be actively involved in advocating for American business including in promoting trade agreements and engaging in commercial diplomacy that will open up markets for our companies and create jobs in the US. Look at what the French president does; he gets into deals involving his companies."

Brilliant alludes to the Indian Air Force's winnowing of contenders to sell it 126 fighter jets to the Eurofighter Typhoon--essentially a NATO product produced by a consortium of three European companies--and the French Dassault...