2012 State of the Union address: on Free Trade

Barack Obama: Double US exports via deals with Panama, Colombia, & S.Korea

I will go anywhere in the world to open new markets for American products.

Barack Obama: Trade Enforcement Unit: inspections for safe imports

Tonight, I'm announcing the creation of a Trade Enforcement Unit that will be charged with investigating unfair trade practices in countries like China. There will be more inspections to prevent counterfeit or unsafe goods from crossing our borders. No foreign company should have an advantage over American manufacturing when it comes to accessing finance or new markets like Russia. Our workers are the most productive on Earth, and if the playing field is level, I promise you--America will always win

Barack Obama: FactCheck: Chinese tire import ban replaced by other imports

The White House based that claim on statistics that show the number of tire manufacturing jobs went from 50,800 in Sept. 2009, when a new tariff on Chinese tires was announced, to 51,900 in Oct. 2011. That's a gain of 1,100 jobs. But that says nothing about the cause.

Imports from China did drop sharply after the tariff took effect in 2009, beginning at a rate of 35%. However, Chinese tires were soon replaced by imports from Thailand, Indonesia, Mexico and elsewhere. "So far as saving American jobs, it just isn't working," says a representative of the Tire Industry Association. "And it really hurt a lot of people in the industry--smaller businesses that geared up to bring these tires in from China."