Speech

Thank you for that kind introduction, Linda.

We'll miss you at Commerce, Linda, but I'm pleased that you'll continue serving the President and the American people here at the Ex-Im Bank.

On behalf of all the American men and women whose jobs depend on exports, let me say again, thank you for a job well done.

Let me also say a word about my friend, Phil Merrill. We've worked together closely in chairing the Trade Promotion Coordination Committee.

Phil brings valuable experience from both the private sector and the government to his position.

But the thing that sets him apart is his entrepreneurial nature and business experience. Phil believes in the power of putting the customer first and that mindset is strengthening and improving the Bank.

Phil, thank you for all that you're doing to help American workers and companies by expanding trade around the world.

Ex-Im and Commerce have always been close partners in the promotion of U.S. manufacturing exports. Ex-Im has always delivered cutting edge financial products to the U.S. export community.

And, under Phil's leadership, the Bank is continuing its reorganization and becoming even more customer-driven and market-focused.

Now, we at Commerce are working to streamline our own trade promotion functions under a new Assistant Secretary for Trade Promotion.

On behalf of my Commerce Team, I want to thank everyone at Ex-Im who has contributed lessons learned from their own reorganization.

We appreciate your support and advice as we transform ourselves to better accomplish our common mission: Expanding American exports and creating the new, high-paying jobs that depend on trade.

It's an honor to be speaking to this conference, marking the Ex-Im Bank's 70th Anniversary. This organization has a proud record of defending freedom that spans the decades.

At a defining moment in the history of our world, a time when the blessings of liberty are pitted against the dark aspirations of terrorists, it is an especially appropriate time to acknowledge those achievements.

After President Franklin Roosevelt founded the bank, Ex-Im made high-risk loans in the 1930s to outflank Nazi Germany's influence in Latin America.

Following WWII, the Bank was the first U.S. agency to offer reconstruction funding in Western Europe. And you did it before the Marshall Plan went into effect.

During the 1950s and 1960s, the Bank financed Third World development projects to counter Soviet Bloc expansionism.

And during the 1990s, the Bank worked with Russian partners to provide oil infrastructure financing to aid Russia's emergence from the Soviet Union.

All of those efforts expanded the reach of freedom, free markets, and the principles that can lift those living in poverty to opportunity, prosperity, and security.

When we consider America's role in the global economy, we can learn a great deal by analyzing current events through the lens of history. History has taught us that global progress is driven by American engagement.

Free interaction between nations brings prosperity at home and higher living standards around the world.

The free flow of goods and services across borders supports the emergence of a world that is freer, more open, more prosperous and more peaceful.

This bipartisan tradition of active engagement laid the foundation for American prosperity and built the global economy - delivering not only the world's highest living standards for Americans, but also uplifting countless millions globally.

It has been the most powerful source of economic progress in modern times. But not everyone recognizes the clear value of American engagement. Some would have us withdraw from international markets to husband our strength behind new barriers to trade.

The emerging economic isolationism must be firmly and forcefully rejected.

A retreat from engagement with the world would bring economic hardship for the United States and a descent into depression for the global economy.

It is a double dose of defeatism that those who criticize the President for waging the war against terrorism too aggressively are, at the same time, encouraging an American retreat from the world on economic matters.

In the early 1940s, Franklin Roosevelt forcefully rejected the false - but dangerous - arguments by those who claimed that peace and freedom could be secured by negotiating with evil and that America could build prosperity behind a new wall of isolation.

In FDR's Four Freedoms speech, he said, and I quote:

"The United States. . . has at all times maintained opposition - clear, definite opposition - to any attempt to lock us in behind an ancient Chinese wall while the procession of civilization went past."

"Today, thinking of our children and of their children, we oppose enforced isolation for ourselves or for any other part of the Americas. "

History teaches that political freedom and economic liberty are related and necessary components of healthy societies.

This has been the foundation of American foreign policy from the Second World War to this day.

The President understands that economic engagement and the forward strategy of freedom are linked. They are necessary elements for the triumph of liberty. We cannot have economic security without national security.

You, the people of the Ex-Im Bank, and your counterparts around the world are working in the enterprises of democratic capitalism. You play a powerful role in the conflict of ideas between democracy and terror.

Engagement opens the lines of communication, expands understanding, and builds relationships that bridge divisions between cultures and countries.

Economic engagement not only expands prosperity, it also makes our world more cohesive and peaceful.

Americans created the highest standard of living by working with the world. Consider our progress since 1950.

Today, our economy is five times larger and exports have expanded by a factor of 20.

As the Ex-Im experience shows, when America reached out to the world, not only did we do better, but everyone we traded with did better too.

Alan Greenspan has said that global economic engagement is one of "the most underestimated aspects of U.S. growth."

For America, more trade with other countries breeds more growth for American markets and, ultimately, more jobs right here in the U.S.A.

Roughly one out of every five, factory jobs - 20 percent of the jobs in America - depends on trade. The wages of those working in plants that export are roughly 18 percent higher than those who don't.

A retreat from the world would cost American jobs by denying new markets for U.S. products.

Isolationism would choke off the pace of global economic development that is creating a huge demand for American goods and services around the world. And needless to say, such a retreat would be devastating to the work of the Bank.

America is not a fortress. It's a bridge. The traffic on that bridge goes two ways: Exchanging jobs, trade, profits, and prosperity.

But we're now hearing the misguided theory that America could boost manufacturing by raising a barrier to keep out foreign products.

The majority of U.S. imports don't go straight to stores or showrooms. They go to American factories where American workers add value.

Here at home, recent threats to withdraw from our trading agreements place at risk not only the jobs of the 6.4 million people employed by foreign companies in America, but also the millions of Americans whose jobs depend on exports.

Let's be sure to remember the lessons of the 1920s and 1930s. Economic isolationism made things a lot worse for Americans and for people all over the world during the Great Depression.

hen America raised barriers to trade, economic walls went up globally as nation after nation raised retaliatory tariffs. World equity markets sank lower and lower, as banks failed, demand died, inventories piled up, and unemployment exploded worldwide.

As the worldwide decline took hold, the U.S. government raised taxes. Higher taxes further harmed our economy.

We learned a hard lesson: Throwing protectionist punches only results in knocking yourself out.

History shows that economic isolationism starts as populist regression and ends as unpopular Depression.

While a retreat from the world would be an economic and political disaster for Americans, the Bush Administration's top priority is to ensure that our trading partners play by the rules.

We're aggressively confronting any country that tilts the playing field against American workers.

Whether that country is China or India or any other trading partner, we are cracking down on unfair trade practices not only after they've happened but as they happen.

The Ex-Im Bank experience proves that America moves forward by engaging the world. We're exporting not just our goods and services but also our liberating principles of freedom, including free and fair trade.

Those who exercise the freedom to sell American products and services from anywhere in the world aren't "Benedict Arnold" traitors.

They are "Ben Franklin" free traders and innovators who recognize that progress comes from making the pie bigger for everyone - not from slicing it ever thinner.

The Economic Isolationists are preaching a bogus salvation. FDR had a term for claims like these."pious frauds."

Over and over, history has shown us that the economic isolationists underestimate America's ability to compete and win. They are standing on the wrong side of history.

President Bush and his Administration are charting a different course. We trust America. We trust freedom.

All of you have dedicated your careers to that different course. You are standing on the right side of history. You trust in the hopes, dreams and aspirations of people around the world.

Together, we can build a world that is freer more peaceful, and more prosperous. Let us build a world that all of our children and grandchildren would want to call home.

Thank you for all that you're doing to expand freedom and prosperity by fostering trade. God bless you.