By Jason Oxman

CEA took its free trade campaign to Capitol Hill today for a rally featuring an impressive lineup of speakers and a huge crowd of supporters.  Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez led off the morning’s program, urging Congress to pass pending trade agreements with Colombia, Panama and South Korea.  Secretary Gutierrez pointed out that in the nearly two years that the Colombia free trade agreement has been languishing in Congress, other nations of the world have negotiated hundreds of free trade agreements with each other, leaving the U.S. behind in its access to new markets for export of U.S. made products.  Special international guests, the Honorable Lee Tae-Sik, the South Korean Ambassador to the U.S., and the Honorable Carolina Barco, the Colombian Ambassador to the U.S., joined the rally to support trade between our nations. 

Members of Congress, including Congressman Wally Herger, Congresswoman Marsha Blackburn, Congressman James McCrery, Congressman Jerry Weller, and Congressman Kevin McCarthy, each took to the podium to urge their colleagues in the House of Representatives to approve pending free trade agreements. They spoke of the urgency of passing such agreements in the current economy so as to give American companies, farmers, ranchers and others the opportunity to sell U.S. products overseas and grow their businesses while adding new jobs.  Congressman Herger pointed out that fully 40 percent of U.S. jobs – some 57 million jobs in total – are dependent in some way on trade.  That pretty much sums up the vital importance of trade to our economy.

Next stop:  the headquarters of consumer electronics retailer Crutchfield in Charlottesville, Virginia.

U.S. Secretary of Commerce Carlos Gutierrez addresses the CEA “America Wins With Trade” rally on Capitol Hill.

CEA’s “America Wins With Trade” bus pulls up in front of the U.S. Capitol.

Popularity: 7% [?]

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 24th, 2008 at 11:38 am and is filed under Free Trade. Reply to this post, or trackback from your own site. Follow responses to this entry through the comments RSS feed.