America Wins With Trade Bus Tour - Sitting at the (Charleston) Dock of the Bay
By Dan Cole
While Charleston South Carolina is best known for its beautiful architecture, historic sites and down-home Southern charm, I got to see another side of this over 400 year-old city, and one that was all business.
As CEA’s “America Wins with Trade” bus pulled up to the checkpoint station at the Charleston Seaport, Port Security personnel boarded in order to check our credentials and verify all of our information. I could see a steady stream of trucks being waved through onto to the port grounds. In each and every one of the trucks heading into port were products, made by Americans, now on their final journey from American factories to consumers around the world. After all, that’s what free trade does: it creates jobs, which in turn strengthens our economy, which in turn betters the lives of American citizens.
We parked the bus in front of four humungous berthing docks all teeming with hundreds of longshoremen, crane operators, tie masters and other personnel, all working in unison to load up four gigantic ships berthed and preparing for trips to North Europe, Latin America and other places around the world. I was amazed to observe the discipline, skill and effort being put forth by all involved. But then again, these were Americans I was watching—the greatest workers in the world.
Pictured from left to right: Bobby Collins, Dan Cole, and Bernard Groseclose.
I was fortunate to be welcomed by Bobby Collins, chairman of the board, Charleston Metro (South Carolina) Chamber of Commerce, and Bernard S. Groseclose, president and chief executive officer, South Carolina Ports Authority. Both gentlemen spoke vigorously about the importance of free trade, its positive effect on the economy and the need for advance approval of pending trade agreements in congress.
You don’t appreciate it unless you see it action. I got to see hundreds of millions of dollars of American goods hauled in, hoisted up and then set sail for far-away places. Free trade narrows the distance between us and our partners in those far-away places in ideas, commerce and understanding. We’ve always been about leading the world to the table to engage in these virtues, not retreating as some misinformed television commentators would have us do.
Those ships dock and leave that Charleston port all day and all night with our economic potential along for the ride. May they never leave empty.
Time to ship out to our next city…
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